If formatter assigned to org.apache.juli.FileHandler in logging.properties is misconfigured and fails to load, the FileHandler starts without formatter and fails with an NPE later. To reproduce: assign some bogus value to 1catalina.org.apache.juli.FileHandler.formatter When Tomcat starts, the following will be printed at the console: java.util.logging.ErrorManager: 4 java.lang.NullPointerException at org.apache.juli.FileHandler.openWriter(FileHandler.java:377) at org.apache.juli.FileHandler.<init>(FileHandler.java:99) at org.apache.juli.FileHandler.<init>(FileHandler.java:90) I think we can be more tolerant to this configuration error and fall back to the default formatter. I will commit a fix shortly.
Fixed in 7.0 with r1137996, will be in 7.0.17. Proposed for 6.0 and 5.5.
Fixed in 6.0 in r1145188 and will be in 6.0.33