title: exception loading sessions from persistent storage
body: <p>I have made many changes to <a href="https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-petclinic/">the spring petclinic application</a>.  At the moment, I am getting the following error message when I launch the application in a new instance of tomcat server using eclipse run as...run on server:  </p>
  
  <pre><code>SEVERE: Exception loading sessions from persistent storage  
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The server and application then subsequently are able to launch successfully, but I would like to fix whatever is causing the error message.  Can anyone show me how to get past this error message?  </p>
  
  <p>The stack trace does not list any file from the application, so I don't know where to look in the application code to fix the problem.  You can look in <a href="https://github.com/spring-projects/spring-petclinic/">the petclinic code at github</a> to see the structure of the application, if that helps you see where I should look to find the problem.  Here is the stack trace:  </p>
  
  <pre><code>INFO  EhCacheManagerFactoryBean - Initializing EhCache CacheManager
  INFO  ContextLoader - Root WebApplicationContext: initialization completed in 4376 ms
  Dec 16, 2013 2:51:56 PM org.apache.catalina.session.StandardManager doLoad
  SEVERE: IOException while loading persisted sessions: java.io.EOFException  
  java.io.EOFException
      at java.io.ObjectInputStream$PeekInputStream.readFully(ObjectInputStream.java:2280)
      at java.io.ObjectInputStream$BlockDataInputStream.readShort(ObjectInputStream.java:2749)
      at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readStreamHeader(ObjectInputStream.java:779)
      at java.io.ObjectInputStream.&lt;init&gt;(ObjectInputStream.java:279)
      at org.apache.catalina.util.CustomObjectInputStream.&lt;init&gt;(CustomObjectInputStream.java:58)
      at org.apache.catalina.session.StandardManager.doLoad(StandardManager.java:246)
      at org.apache.catalina.session.StandardManager.load(StandardManager.java:204)
      at org.apache.catalina.session.StandardManager.startInternal(StandardManager.java:491)
      at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150)
      at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.startInternal(StandardContext.java:5443)
      at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150)
      at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$StartChild.call(ContainerBase.java:1559)
      at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$StartChild.call(ContainerBase.java:1549)
      at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync.innerRun(FutureTask.java:303)
      at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:138)
      at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.runTask(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:886)
      at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:908)
      at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:662)
  Dec 16, 2013 2:51:56 PM org.apache.catalina.session.StandardManager startInternal
  SEVERE: Exception loading sessions from persistent storage  
  java.io.EOFException
      at java.io.ObjectInputStream$PeekInputStream.readFully(ObjectInputStream.java:2280)
      at java.io.ObjectInputStream$BlockDataInputStream.readShort(ObjectInputStream.java:2749)
      at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readStreamHeader(ObjectInputStream.java:779)
      at java.io.ObjectInputStream.&lt;init&gt;(ObjectInputStream.java:279)
      at org.apache.catalina.util.CustomObjectInputStream.&lt;init&gt;(CustomObjectInputStream.java:58)
      at org.apache.catalina.session.StandardManager.doLoad(StandardManager.java:246)
      at org.apache.catalina.session.StandardManager.load(StandardManager.java:204)
      at org.apache.catalina.session.StandardManager.startInternal(StandardManager.java:491)
      at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150)
      at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.startInternal(StandardContext.java:5443)
      at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150)
      at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$StartChild.call(ContainerBase.java:1559)
      at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$StartChild.call(ContainerBase.java:1549)
      at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync.innerRun(FutureTask.java:303)
      at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:138)
      at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.runTask(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:886)
      at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:908)
      at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:662)
  Dec 16, 2013 2:51:56 PM org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationContext log
  INFO: Initializing Spring FrameworkServlet 'petclinic'  
  </code></pre>