title: Grails beginner problem "Failed to invoke Servlet 2.5"
body: <p>[UPDATE]</p>
  
  <p>Apparently I'm not the only one with this problem - <a href="http://grails.1312388.n4.nabble.com/Beginner-ERROR-Failed-to-invoke-Servlet-2-5-getContextPath-method-td2222279.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">http://grails.1312388.n4.nabble.com/Beginner-ERROR-Failed-to-invoke-Servlet-2-5-getContextPath-method-td2222279.html</a> .  It has also appeared on a Windows machine and in the Netbeans IDE on OS X.  </p>
  
  <p>At this point, the part that has me particularly perplexed, is I can run my Grails apps just fine from within Eclipse, but the second I try to run them from the Terminal they bomb.  As far as I can tell, they are both being run from the grails-core directory, so why would it work from within Eclipse but not from the Terminal?</p>
  
  <p>[/UPDATE]</p>
  
  <p>I'm trying to get Grails set up on a Snow Leopard machine.  I followed all the grails.com install directions and am trying to start the application from Grails: A Quick-Start Guide by Dave Klein.  I ran <code>grails create-app TekDays</code> with no apparent problems and was able to cd to the TekDays folder, but when I try to run <code>grails run-app</code> I get the following: </p>
  
  <pre>
  Welcome to Grails 1.3.1 - http://grails.org/
  Licensed under Apache Standard License 2.0
  Grails home is set to: /grails
  
  Base Directory: /apps/TekDays
  Resolving dependencies...
  Dependencies resolved in 4469ms.
  Running script /grails/scripts/RunApp.groovy
  Environment set to development
     [delete] Deleting directory /Users/name/.grails/1.3.1/projects/TekDays/tomcat
  Running Grails application..
  2010-05-24 21:42:39,559 [main] ERROR context.GrailsContextLoader  - Error executing bootstraps: Failed to invoke Servlet 2.5 getContextPath method
  java.lang.IllegalStateException: Failed to invoke Servlet 2.5 getContextPath method
      at org.grails.tomcat.TomcatServer.start(TomcatServer.groovy:164)
      at grails.web.container.EmbeddableServer$start.call(Unknown Source)
      at _GrailsRun_groovy$_run_closure5_closure12.doCall(_GrailsRun_groovy:159)
      at _GrailsRun_groovy$_run_closure5_closure12.doCall(_GrailsRun_groovy)
      at _GrailsSettings_groovy$_run_closure10.doCall(_GrailsSettings_groovy:282)
      at _GrailsSettings_groovy$_run_closure10.call(_GrailsSettings_groovy)
      at _GrailsRun_groovy$_run_closure5.doCall(_GrailsRun_groovy:150)
      at _GrailsRun_groovy$_run_closure5.call(_GrailsRun_groovy)
      at _GrailsRun_groovy.runInline(_GrailsRun_groovy:116)
      at _GrailsRun_groovy.this$4$runInline(_GrailsRun_groovy)
      at _GrailsRun_groovy$_run_closure1.doCall(_GrailsRun_groovy:59)
      at RunApp$_run_closure1.doCall(RunApp.groovy:33)
      at gant.Gant$_dispatch_closure5.doCall(Gant.groovy:381)
      at gant.Gant$_dispatch_closure7.doCall(Gant.groovy:415)
      at gant.Gant$_dispatch_closure7.doCall(Gant.groovy)
      at gant.Gant.withBuildListeners(Gant.groovy:427)
      at gant.Gant.this$2$withBuildListeners(Gant.groovy)
      at gant.Gant$this$2$withBuildListeners.callCurrent(Unknown Source)
      at gant.Gant.dispatch(Gant.groovy:415)
      at gant.Gant.this$2$dispatch(Gant.groovy)
      at gant.Gant.invokeMethod(Gant.groovy)
      at gant.Gant.executeTargets(Gant.groovy:590)
      at gant.Gant.executeTargets(Gant.groovy:589)
  Caused by: java.lang.NoSuchMethodException: javax.servlet.ServletContext.getContextPath()
      at java.lang.Class.getMethod(Class.java:1605)
      ... 23 more
  </pre>
  
  <p>I've googled every derivative of "Failed to invoke Servlet 2.5" that I can think of, but have thus far been unable to find anything that helps me understand, yet alone resolve, the error.  </p>
  
  <p>Any advice to help me resolve this would be very much appreciated!</p>