Question

Well I had Tomcat 6 up ad running for a long time and then all of a sudden I started getting this error message when I try to go to this page: http://localhost:9090

Method GET not implemented (try POST)

Update: after changing my port to 8780 and accessing http://localhost:8780 I just get this in Firefox:

Unable to connect

I have no idea what is wrong, I have reinstalled Tomcat entirely. Any ideas?

All I am trying to do is get the default tomcat page up for now. not actually trying to use a webapp.

server.xml (removed web.xml examples..ive now changed my port to 8780….)

<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<!--
  Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
  contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
  this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
  The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
  (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
  the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at

      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

  Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
  distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
  WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
  See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
  limitations under the License.
-->
<!-- Note:  A "Server" is not itself a "Container", so you may not
     define subcomponents such as "Valves" at this level.
     Documentation at /docs/config/server.html
 -->
<Server port="8005" shutdown="SHUTDOWN">

  <!--APR library loader. Documentation at /docs/apr.html -->
  <Listener className="org.apache.catalina.core.AprLifecycleListener" SSLEngine="on" />
  <!--Initialize Jasper prior to webapps are loaded. Documentation at /docs/jasper-howto.html -->
  <Listener className="org.apache.catalina.core.JasperListener" />
  <!-- JMX Support for the Tomcat server. Documentation at /docs/non-existent.html -->
  <Listener className="org.apache.catalina.mbeans.ServerLifecycleListener" />
  <Listener className="org.apache.catalina.mbeans.GlobalResourcesLifecycleListener" />

  <!-- Global JNDI resources
       Documentation at /docs/jndi-resources-howto.html
  -->
  <GlobalNamingResources>
    <!-- Editable user database that can also be used by
         UserDatabaseRealm to authenticate users
    -->
    <Resource name="UserDatabase" auth="Container"
              type="org.apache.catalina.UserDatabase"
              description="User database that can be updated and saved"
              factory="org.apache.catalina.users.MemoryUserDatabaseFactory"
              pathname="conf/tomcat-users.xml" />
  </GlobalNamingResources>

  <!-- A "Service" is a collection of one or more "Connectors" that share
       a single "Container" Note:  A "Service" is not itself a "Container", 
       so you may not define subcomponents such as "Valves" at this level.
       Documentation at /docs/config/service.html
   -->
  <Service name="Catalina">

    <!--The connectors can use a shared executor, you can define one or more named thread pools-->
    <!--
    <Executor name="tomcatThreadPool" namePrefix="catalina-exec-" 
        maxThreads="150" minSpareThreads="4"/>
    -->


    <!-- A "Connector" represents an endpoint by which requests are received
         and responses are returned. Documentation at :
         Java HTTP Connector: /docs/config/http.html (blocking & non-blocking)
         Java AJP  Connector: /docs/config/ajp.html
         APR (HTTP/AJP) Connector: /docs/apr.html
         Define a non-SSL HTTP/1.1 Connector on port 8080
    -->
    <Connector port="8780" protocol="HTTP/1.1" 
               connectionTimeout="20000" 
               redirectPort="8443" />
    <!-- A "Connector" using the shared thread pool-->
    <!--
    <Connector executor="tomcatThreadPool"
               port="8080" protocol="HTTP/1.1" 
               connectionTimeout="20000" 
               redirectPort="8443" />
    -->           
    <!-- Define a SSL HTTP/1.1 Connector on port 8443
         This connector uses the JSSE configuration, when using APR, the 
         connector should be using the OpenSSL style configuration
         described in the APR documentation -->
    <!--
    <Connector port="8443" protocol="HTTP/1.1" SSLEnabled="true"
               maxThreads="150" scheme="https" secure="true"
               clientAuth="false" sslProtocol="TLS" />
    -->

    <!-- Define an AJP 1.3 Connector on port 8009 -->
    <Connector port="8009" protocol="AJP/1.3" redirectPort="8443" />


    <!-- An Engine represents the entry point (within Catalina) that processes
         every request.  The Engine implementation for Tomcat stand alone
         analyzes the HTTP headers included with the request, and passes them
         on to the appropriate Host (virtual host).
         Documentation at /docs/config/engine.html -->

    <!-- You should set jvmRoute to support load-balancing via AJP ie :
    <Engine name="Standalone" defaultHost="localhost" jvmRoute="jvm1">         
    --> 
    <Engine name="Catalina" defaultHost="localhost">

      <!--For clustering, please take a look at documentation at:
          /docs/cluster-howto.html  (simple how to)
          /docs/config/cluster.html (reference documentation) -->
      <!--
      <Cluster className="org.apache.catalina.ha.tcp.SimpleTcpCluster"/>
      -->        

      <!-- The request dumper valve dumps useful debugging information about
           the request and response data received and sent by Tomcat.
           Documentation at: /docs/config/valve.html -->
      <!--
      <Valve className="org.apache.catalina.valves.RequestDumperValve"/>
      -->

      <!-- This Realm uses the UserDatabase configured in the global JNDI
           resources under the key "UserDatabase".  Any edits
           that are performed against this UserDatabase are immediately
           available for use by the Realm.  -->
      <Realm className="org.apache.catalina.realm.UserDatabaseRealm"
             resourceName="UserDatabase"/>

      <!-- Define the default virtual host
           Note: XML Schema validation will not work with Xerces 2.2.
       -->
      <Host name="localhost"  appBase="webapps"
            unpackWARs="true" autoDeploy="true"
            xmlValidation="false" xmlNamespaceAware="false">

        <!-- SingleSignOn valve, share authentication between web applications
             Documentation at: /docs/config/valve.html -->
        <!--
        <Valve className="org.apache.catalina.authenticator.SingleSignOn" />
        -->

        <!-- Access log processes all example.
             Documentation at: /docs/config/valve.html -->
        <!--
        <Valve className="org.apache.catalina.valves.AccessLogValve" directory="logs"  
               prefix="localhost_access_log." suffix=".txt" pattern="common" resolveHosts="false"/>
        -->

      </Host>
    </Engine>
  </Service>
</Server>

Answer 1

Are you sure you’re accessing the correct port? This error message is typical for invalid SOAP (XML-RPC) requests, not for invalid HTTP requests. The Tomcat admin pages are usually to be served by HTTP. Check /conf/server.xml to verify port number (or to change it).

Are you also sure that it’s Tomcat which listens on that port? Maybe you’ve installed another server software which hijacked that port from Tomcat. If Windows, check it with netstat.

Edit: as per the update (the “Unable to connect” error after changing the port): are you sure you’ve configured and started the right Tomcat instance? Maybe you’ve installed multiple Tomcats in parallel.