Error "Cannot build an application for a request which servlet context does not match with the application that it is being built for."

[berndgoetz]

Hello Thymeleaf Team,

I'm running Spring Boot 3.2.1, and the spring-boot-starter-thymeleaf. This pulls Thymeleaf version 3.1.2.RELEASE.

When running the application I get the following error at first access of the thymeleaf template for the home path ("/" or ""):

1/20/2024, 12:43:26 PM [APP/PROC/WEB/0] OUT java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Cannot build an application for a request which servlet context does not match with the application that it is being built for.
1/20/2024, 12:43:26 PM [APP/PROC/WEB/0] OUT at org.thymeleaf.util.Validate.isTrue(Validate.java:79)
1/20/2024, 12:43:26 PM [APP/PROC/WEB/0] OUT at org.thymeleaf.web.servlet.JakartaServletWebApplication.buildExchange(JakartaServletWebApplication.java:64)
1/20/2024, 12:43:26 PM [APP/PROC/WEB/0] OUT at org.thymeleaf.spring6.view.ThymeleafView.renderFragment(ThymeleafView.java:204)
1/20/2024, 12:43:26 PM [APP/PROC/WEB/0] OUT at org.thymeleaf.spring6.view.ThymeleafView.render(ThymeleafView.java:192) 
...

I found #926 and #937 and they assume it being fixed with 3.1.x. Are we looking at a regression issue here? Thanks.

[berndgoetz]

The root context problem can be fixed with the following change in JakartaServletWebApplication:

    private boolean servletContextMatches(final HttpServletRequest httpServletRequest) {
        // We should not be directly matching servletContext objects because a wrapper might have been applied
        final String servletContextPath = this.servletContext.getContextPath();
        final String requestServletContextPath = httpServletRequest.getServletContext().getContextPath();
        if (StringUtils.isEmpty(servletContextPath)
                && requestServletContextPath != null
                && requestServletContextPath.equals("/")) {
            return true;
        }
        if (StringUtils.isEmpty(requestServletContextPath)
                && servletContextPath != null
                && servletContextPath.equals("/")) {
            return true;
        }
        return Objects.equals(servletContextPath, requestServletContextPath);
    }

It's the classical "context root identity" issue, i.e. is the context root empty or a slash, such as https://example.com/ vs. https://example.com. I don't know why this validation is necessary in the first place, but just ignoring the differentiation between "" and "/" as the context root makes sense to me. I don't think I can configure that accordingly.

I'm deploying the application into Open Liberty version 23.0.0.8.

[berndgoetz]

This can be reproduced now in the fork at https://github.com/berndgoetz/spring-petclinic. See the readme there

[berndgoetz]

Any news on this?

[pablocarle]

Hi, following the issue as we see the same situation with openliberty 22.0.0.8, deployed in root context path this.servletContext.getContextPath();: "/" and httpServletRequest.getServletContext().getContextPath();: ""