StackOverflowError loading ffmpeg in Tomcat on Linux

[jshailes]

I'm having some difficulties loading the ffmpeg javacpp libraries in Tomcat on Linux. It works fine in Tomcat on Windows, and also fine in Linux when running as a standalone.

In my application I'm using javacv, flandmark and ffpeg. Both javacv and flankmark work fine but when I instantiate FFmpegFrameRecorder I receive a couple of errors:

Error loading class org/bytedeco/javacpp/Loader.
java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: Could not initialize class org.bytedeco.javacpp.avcodec
    at java.lang.Class.forName0(Native Method)
    at java.lang.Class.forName(Class.java:340)
    at org.bytedeco.javacpp.Loader.load(Loader.java:385)
    at org.bytedeco.javacpp.Loader.load(Loader.java:353)
    at org.bytedeco.javacpp.avcodec$AVPacket.<clinit>(avcodec.java:1383)
    at org.bytedeco.javacv.FFmpegFrameRecorder.<init>(FFmpegFrameRecorder.java:148)
    at org.bytedeco.javacv.FFmpegFrameRecorder.<init>(FFmpegFrameRecorder.java:125)

I've read on a thread somewhere that this error could be fixed by first making a call to org.bytedeco.javacpp.Loader.load(org.bytedeco.javacpp.avcodec.class);, however this results in the following error:

Error loading class org/bytedeco/javacpp/Loader.
java.lang.StackOverflowError
    at java.lang.ClassLoader$NativeLibrary.load(Native Method)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadLibrary0(ClassLoader.java:1929)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadLibrary(ClassLoader.java:1814)
    at java.lang.Runtime.load0(Runtime.java:809)
    at java.lang.System.load(System.java:1083)
    at org.bytedeco.javacpp.Loader.loadLibrary(Loader.java:524)
    at org.bytedeco.javacpp.Loader.load(Loader.java:410)
    at org.bytedeco.javacpp.Loader.load(Loader.java:353)
    at org.bytedeco.javacpp.avcodec.<clinit>(avcodec.java:13)
    at java.lang.Class.forName0(Native Method)
    at java.lang.Class.forName(Class.java:340)
    at org.bytedeco.javacpp.Loader.load(Loader.java:385)

I've created the simplest maven test project I could to demonstrate these two scenarios - it can be downloaded from http://picosoft.co.uk/ffmpeg-test.zip.

Thanks for your time,

James

[saudet]

What is the name and version of your Linux distribution? With which version of JavaCV?

[jshailes]

I upgraded last night to Xubuntu 15.04 to see if that helped (it didn't), previously I was running Xubuntu 14.04.

JRE is 1.8.0_11-b12, although I'm pretty sure 1.7 yields the same problem - I can confirm this if it helps.

Servlet container is vFabric Tomcat Server 2.9.6 which is based on tomcat 7.

I've tested unsuccessfully with JavaCV 0.8, 0.9, and 0.10.

[saudet]

There's one thing we need to be careful when using Tomcat with JNI:
http://wiki.apache.org/tomcat/HowTo#I.27m_encountering_classloader_problems_when_using_JNI_under_Tomcat
You're not getting the same error, but it might be related. Make sure to put all JAR files related to JavaCV in the shared folder, or if that doesn't work, try some other way to have them loaded by the system class loader.

[saudet]

Have you been able to make any progress with this?

[jshailes]

I've not spent much more time on it to be honest, I just test on windows for anything involving video.

[saudet]

This is most likely fixed with commit bytedeco/javacpp@7968093 in JavaCPP and JavaCV 1.4.