java web server - newly created file not found by browser, until server restart
I have a tomcat 7.0 web server on my local machine, when doing a GET call to server i create a file (image), save it on server and give the browser the URL to fetch.
The browser gets a 404 "file not found" for the URL, even after I refresh the browser same 404.
Only after I restart the server the browser finds the file and all goes as planned.
I have tried giving it read permissions, but it did not help.
Where to look for the problem?
Tomcat Version : Apache Tomcat/7.0.12,
Servlet Specification Version : 3.0.
the file is saved under /projectName/WebContent/resources/images.
URL for accessing file: "http://localhost:8080/projectName/resources/images/2.png."
before a response to the GET call is returned the file already exists (also the file is not found after browser refresh - meaning another call).
as for cache settings, I have none, here is my web.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<web-app xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee" xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_2_5.xsd" id="WebApp_ID" version="2.5">
<display-name>ProjectName</display-name>
<servlet>
<servlet-name>dispatcher</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
<init-param>
<param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
<param-value>/WEB-INF/configuration/dispatcher-servlet.xml</param-value>
</init-param>
<load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>dispatcher</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
<context-param>
<param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
<param-value>WEB-INF/configuration/applicationContext.xml</param-value>
</context-param>
<listener>
<listener-class>org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener</listener-class>
</listener>
</web-app>
If this is part of your application path, I presume identified in a context.xml, then it will not be visible until the context is redeployed. When a context is deployed, it is copied to work and run from there. Only WEB-INF/web.xml is watched for changes, changes to other files should not have any effect (except for JSP if you are running in dev mode).
- You can store files outside any webapp folder path, this is a best practice
- Write a servlet to fetch them from that directory for example /getpic/filename.png would look in c:\images\filename.png for the file, and stream it back to the user.