Question

Whenever I enter the URL localhost:8443/context/anyname.anyextension I get the Status 404 (Not found) But when I try something like localhost:8443/context/anynameWithouthExtensions it seems that Struts 2 tries to map to an action and then I get the error 500 (Internal Server Error). Shouldn’t I always get the status 404 with both approaches?

Answer 1

You have probably used a <default-action-ref , that is a reference to the default Action to be used for all the UN-matched requests for that namespace.
And for that namespace, you have some rules specifying that only URLs without extensions
are handled.

Take a look at this:

Docs: http://struts.apache.org/2.1.6/docs/action-configuration.html

<package name="Hello" extends="action-default">

    <default-action-ref name="UnderConstruction">

    <action name="UnderConstruction">
        <result>/UnderConstruction.jsp</result>
    </action>

and eventually post your configuration.

If this is the case, i expect you got 404 even with a

localhost:8443/context/SOME_INVENTED_PATH/anynameWithouthExtensions

because the default action ref is probably bound only to the root.

AND the default Action goes on error, of course…