tridion:ComponentLink tag not working on Java app

Question

We have a Windows 64 bit machine, where we initially set up a .NET Content Deployer and we deployed there aspx generated from CMS Tridion (DWT & Razor), and the environment is working. Now, we need to move to Java, so I did the following steps:

• on the CMS side I set up a new publication target with JSP target
• on the existing CD Windows machine, I set up on Tomcat the cd_upload application, so I was able to deploy JSP's
• I set up a web application on Eclipse where I deploy the JSP's, and I'm running it on Tomcat

So the JSP files are deploying and I can access them through the Tomcat server. The problem is for the JSP's that have component links, in that case I get the error below:

message: /all-offers.jsp (line: 50, column: 2) Unable to load tag handler class "com.tridion.web.jsp.tag.ComponentLinkHandler" for tag "tridion:ComponentLink"

description: The server encountered an internal error that prevented it from fulfilling this request.

exception

org.apache.jasper.JasperException: /all-offers.jsp (line: 50, column: 2) Unable to load tag handler class "com.tridion.web.jsp.tag.ComponentLinkHandler" for tag "tridion:ComponentLink"
org.apache.jasper.compiler.DefaultErrorHandler.jspError(DefaultErrorHandler.java:42)
org.apache.jasper.compiler.ErrorDispatcher.dispatch(ErrorDispatcher.java:443)
org.apache.jasper.compiler.ErrorDispatcher.jspError(ErrorDispatcher.java:199)
org.apache.jasper.compiler.Parser.parseCustomTag(Parser.java:1226)
org.apache.jasper.compiler.Parser.parseElementsScriptless(Parser.java:1501)
org.apache.jasper.compiler.Parser.parseBody(Parser.java:1667)
org.apache.jasper.compiler.Parser.parseJspBody(Parser.java:1618)
org.apache.jasper.compiler.Parser.parseJspAttributeAndBody(Parser.java:1029)
org.apache.jasper.compiler.Parser.parseOptionalBody(Parser.java:1000)
org.apache.jasper.compiler.Parser.parseCustomTag(Parser.java:1274)
org.apache.jasper.compiler.Parser.parseElements(Parser.java:1452)
org.apache.jasper.compiler.Parser.parse(Parser.java:138)
org.apache.jasper.compiler.ParserController.doParse(ParserController.java:242)
org.apache.jasper.compiler.ParserController.parse(ParserController.java:102)
org.apache.jasper.compiler.Compiler.generateJava(Compiler.java:198)
org.apache.jasper.compiler.Compiler.compile(Compiler.java:373)
org.apache.jasper.compiler.Compiler.compile(Compiler.java:353)
org.apache.jasper.compiler.Compiler.compile(Compiler.java:340)
org.apache.jasper.JspCompilationContext.compile(JspCompilationContext.java:646)
org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServletWrapper.service(JspServletWrapper.java:357)
org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.serviceJspFile(JspServlet.java:390)
org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet.service(JspServlet.java:334)
javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:728)
note The full stack trace of the root cause is available in the Apache Tomcat/7.0.42 logs.

What I tried:

• in WEB_INF/lib I added cd_tags.tld file

• in the JSP I set on the header: <%@taglib uri="/WEB-INF/lib/cd_tags.tld" prefix="tridion" %>

• in the JSP, the generated tags look like: <tridion:ComponentLink pageURI="tcm:10-565-64" componentURI="tcm:10-320" templateURI="tcm:0-0-0" addAnchor="false" linkText="&lt;i class=&#34;icon-chevron-right&#34;&gt;&lt;/i&gt;see more details" linkAttributes=" class=&#39;uppercase&#39;" textOnFail="true"/>

• in the Java build path I included the jar files from the software distribution: cd_ambient.jar, cd_broker.jar, cd_cache.jar, cd_core.jar, cd_datalayer.jar, cd_dynamic.jar, cd_linking.jar, cd_model.jar, cd_tcdl.jar, cd_wai.jar

• on the cd_tags.tld file I see the warning:

  The tag handler class for "ComponentLink" (com.tridion.web.jsp.tag.ComponentLinkHandler) was not found on the Java Build Path.

So it looks like that class above is not found in the CLASSPATH.

I tried with both Java 6 and Java 7 JDK's and I get the same error.

So can you give me some pointers where I could check?

Answer 1

I would probably check the following first:

1. You have the correct cd_license.xml file and are referencing it correctly
2. You have the correct version of the JRE installed (64-bit) and have referenced it correctly.
3. You have the System Classpath properly referenced. This is used by the Cache Channel Service and Deployer. Details can be found in the online documentation here (login required).
4. You have all of the necessary jar files. More details are in the Content Delivery JAR file reference section of the online documentation (login required).

Hope it helps!

Answer 2

From the error message

Unable to load tag handler class "com.tridion.web.jsp.tag.ComponentLinkHandler"

it sounds like there is something missing or wrong with your configuration files. Handler classes are configured in cd_dynamic_conf.xml. Does your site have a custom tag handler implemented and is overriding the default class? Perhaps you're missing cd_dynamic_conf.xml altogether or is it corrupt in some way?