title: grails app fails to start in Tomcat7 - can't get any useful information from log?
body: <p>I deployed a grails 2 app into a tomcat7 and it just won't start. I tried a bunch of things to get any information from the catalina.out or my apps log but all I get is</p>
  
  <pre><code>Jul 30, 2012 5:47:40 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngine startInternal
  INFO: Starting Servlet Engine: Apache Tomcat/7.0.28
  Jul 30, 2012 5:47:40 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig deployDescriptor
  INFO: Deploying configuration descriptor /etc/tomcat7/Catalina/localhost/manager.xml
  Jul 30, 2012 5:47:41 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig deployDescriptor
  INFO: Deploying configuration descriptor /etc/tomcat7/Catalina/localhost/host-manager.xml
  Jul 30, 2012 5:47:41 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig deployWAR
  INFO: Deploying web application archive /var/lib/tomcat7/webapps/ROOT.war
  Jul 30, 2012 5:47:41 PM org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationContext log
  INFO: Initializing Spring root WebApplicationContext
  Jul 30, 2012 5:47:49 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext startInternal
  SEVERE: Error listenerStart
  Jul 30, 2012 5:47:49 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext startInternal
  SEVERE: Context [] startup failed due to previous errors
  Jul 30, 2012 5:47:49 PM org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol start
  INFO: Starting ProtocolHandler ["http-bio-127.0.0.1-8081"]
  Jul 30, 2012 5:47:49 PM org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina start
  INFO: Server startup in 8372 ms
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I already put a logging.properties into /var/lib/tomcat/webapps/myApp/WEB-INF/classes containing</p>
  
  <pre><code>org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.[Catalina].level = INFO
  org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.[Catalina].handlers = java.util.logging.ConsoleHandler
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>but this doesn't give me any more information either. </p>
  
  <p>Also, I changed the grails app's loglevel to debug but there is no error coming up either. Currently I have no clue how to get any useful information out of the tomcat or the app, helping me to find the error :(</p>
  
  <p>Cheers,</p>
  
  <p>Moritz</p>
  
  <p><em>Update:</em></p>
  
  <p>My Config.groovy looks like this for the environment I'm trying to run:</p>
  
  <pre><code>staging {
      def logDirectory = "/var/log/myApp"
  
      log4j = {
          appenders {
              rollingFile name: 'stacktrace', file: "${logDirectory}/stacktrace.log".toString(), maxFileSize: '10MB'
              rollingFile name: 'myLog', file: "${logDirectory}/myApp_debug.log".toString(), maxFileSize: '10MB'
          }
  
          root {
              // change the root logger to myLog file
              debug 'myLog'
          }
  
          debug  'grails.app'
          debug  'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.commons' // Core artifact information such as class loading etc.
          debug  'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.web' //Grails web request processing
          debug  'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.web.mapping' // URL mapping debugging
          debug  'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.plugins' //  Log plugin activity
          warn  'grails.spring' // See what Spring beans Grails and plugins are defining
          debug  'org.springframework' // See what Spring is doing
          debug  'org.hibernate' // See what Hibernate is doing
          debug  'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.web.servlet'  //  controllers
          debug  'org.codehaus.groovy.grails.web.pages' //  GSP
          info  'org.apache.catalina' // tomcat
  
          // set level for my messages; this uses the root logger (and thus the tomcatLog file)
          debug 'myApp_debug.log'
      }
  
      grails.serverURL = "someUrl"
  }
  </code></pre>