<<java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method) at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39) at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25) at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:585) at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.start(Bootstrap.java:295) at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.main(Bootstrap.java:433) Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.await(Catalina.java:647) at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.start(Catalina.java:576) ... 6 more>> is not a particularly meaningful way to tell the user that tomcat cannot read the server.xml another issue with insufficient reporting on server.xml user-editing-mishaps is bug 44017
Created attachment 23940 [details] tc_bug_47495_patch.txt some basic ideas to make the problem easier solvable
made a more explicit check instead change applied in trunk with 833121
Tim's patch has been applied to 6.0.x and will be in 6.0.21 onwards. Konstantin has also proposed an additional patch.
Konstantin's additional patch has also been applied to 6.0.x and will be included in 6.0.21 onwards.