Trying to deploy tomcat server through Intellij IDEA and get a strange missing server.xml error

Question

I will start with the error I get, and then explain what I have done so far.

Error running Guestbook: Cannot load /home/anthony/.IntelliJIdea11/system/tomcat/Unnamed_guestbook-spring/conf/server.xml 

Using Intellij IDEA 11 Ultimate Edition:

I added the tomcat6 server in the settings menu → Intellij IDEA application servers, adding the directory where tomcat is installed, then I went to edit the settings in the run drop-down list and added the local tomcat server by default. On the deployment tab, I clicked + → Artifacts ... and selected the ProjectName: war artifact artifact.

Now when I started it for the first time, it gave me some error, for example

 no conf folder found in /home/anthony/.IntelliJIdea11/system/tomcat/Unnamed_guestbook-spring/ 

In a moment of desperation, I simply created a directory called conf, and the error message, of course, changed to:

 Cannot load /home/anthony/.IntelliJIdea11/system/tomcat/Unnamed_guestbook-spring/conf/server.xml 

I do not know where this file should be found, what should be in it, why it is not created, or, first of all, how to get it in the right place. Any help on this would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

Thanks to CrazyCoder for the hint - I downloaded the Vanilla Tomcat 7 installation and added it to the Application Servers menu, and then changed the launch configuration to use it instead, and it started right away.

Appreciate the help!

Answer 2

It happened to me. I found out that I accidentally edited the server.xml file and it is no longer valid xml. Since it could not be correctly analyzed, it was not loaded. The server.xml fix resolved the issue.