You might have an older version of the catalina jar file in your classpath or in an endorsed directory. You can add "-verbose:class" to the java command line in the run script to debug this. I had a similar problem years ago where the error message made no sense: compiler complained that class X is missing method Y, but the source of class X had method Y. Upgrading to a new JDK fixed the problem only to have it reappear later. The issue was that someone put an older version of the jar file into the endorsed directory. Using -verbose:class helped me find the problem, after which I had a few choice words for the person who placed the jar into the endorsed directory. View the original post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=viewtopic&p=4195455#... Reply to the post : http://www.jboss.com/index.html?module=bb&op=posting&mode=reply&a...