Ok, I've managed to load my beans. The SEVERE log entry was caused by some classpath troubles.
Anyway, I'm using AspectJ runtime weaving with Spring, and it looks like it doesn't play nice with Cocoon xerces' version (xercesImpl-2.8.0.jar, xml-apis-1.3.02.jar). To enable runtime weaving, I use <aop:spring-configured/> context tag with a JAVA_OPTS entry of "-javaagent:lib/aspectjweaver.jar", from AspectJ1.5.2a (cf http://opensource.atlassian.com/projects/spring/browse/SPR-2347). Whenever I set this entry I get the following exception during cocoon startup : INFO: XML validation disabled warning parse definitions failed -- (ClassCastException) org.apache.xerces.jaxp. SAXParserFactoryImpl org.apache.xerces.jaxp.SAXParserFactoryImpl java.lang.ClassCastException: org.apache.xerces.jaxp.SAXParserFactoryImpl at javax.xml.parsers.SAXParserFactory.newInstance(SAXParserFactory.java: 107) at org.aspectj.weaver.loadtime.definition.DocumentParser.getXMLReader(Do cumentParser.java:129) at org.aspectj.weaver.loadtime.definition.DocumentParser.parse(DocumentP arser.java:85) at org.aspectj.weaver.loadtime.ClassLoaderWeavingAdaptor.parseDefinition s(ClassLoaderWeavingAdaptor.java:170) at org.aspectj.weaver.loadtime.ClassLoaderWeavingAdaptor.initialize(Clas sLoaderWeavingAdaptor.java:104) at org.aspectj.weaver.loadtime.Aj$ExplicitlyInitializedClassLoaderWeavin gAdaptor.initialize(Aj.java:130) at org.aspectj.weaver.loadtime.Aj$ExplicitlyInitializedClassLoaderWeavin gAdaptor.getWeavingAdaptor(Aj.java:135) at org.aspectj.weaver.loadtime.Aj$WeaverContainer.getWeaver(Aj.java:101) at org.aspectj.weaver.loadtime.Aj.preProcess(Aj.java:61) at org.aspectj.weaver.loadtime.ClassPreProcessorAgentAdapter.transform(C lassPreProcessorAgentAdapter.java:55) at sun.instrument.TransformerManager.transform(TransformerManager.java:1 22) at sun.instrument.InstrumentationImpl.transform(InstrumentationImpl.java :155) at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass1(Native Method) at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass(ClassLoader.java:620) at java.security.SecureClassLoader.defineClass(SecureClassLoader.java:12 4) at java.net.URLClassLoader.defineClass(URLClassLoader.java:260) at java.net.URLClassLoader.access$100(URLClassLoader.java:56) at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:195) at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method) at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:188) at org.apache.cocoon.classloader.DefaultClassLoader.getClass(DefaultClas sLoader.java:94) at org.apache.cocoon.classloader.DefaultClassLoader.loadClass(DefaultCla ssLoader.java:119) at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:251) at org.apache.cocoon.bootstrap.servlet.ShieldingListener.init(ShieldingL istener.java:111) at org.apache.cocoon.bootstrap.servlet.ShieldingListener.contextInitiali zed(ShieldingListener.java:201) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.listenerStart(StandardContex t.java:3729) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.start(StandardContext.java:4 187) at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChildInternal(ContainerBase .java:759) at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChild(ContainerBase.java:73 9) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.addChild(StandardHost.java:524) at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployDirectory(HostConfig.jav a:904) at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployDirectories(HostConfig.j ava:867) at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployApps(HostConfig.java:474 ) at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.start(HostConfig.java:1122) at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.lifecycleEvent(HostConfig.java :310) at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleSupport.fireLifecycleEvent(Lifecycl eSupport.java:119) at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.start(ContainerBase.java:1021) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.start(StandardHost.java:718) at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.start(ContainerBase.java:1013) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngine.start(StandardEngine.java:442 ) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardService.start(StandardService.java:4 50) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardServer.start(StandardServer.java:709 ) at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.start(Catalina.java:551) at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method) at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl. java:39) at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAcces sorImpl.java:25) at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:585) at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.start(Bootstrap.java:294) at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.main(Bootstrap.java:432) I tried to downgrade xerces to 2.6.0 because spring2-rc2 uses xml-amis.jar from xerces2.6, but no luck. Do you use runtime weaving ? thanks laurent
