Working case: check out current version and run mvn spring-boot:run Go to http://localhost:8080/test, works fine Delete src/main/webapp/WEB-INF/classes/META-INF/services/javax.el.ExpressionFactory and rerun, error is thrown: 2014-06-28 01:46:28,640 [http-nio-8080-exec-1] ERROR org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.[Tomcat].[localhost].[/].[jsp] - Servlet.service() for servlet jsp threw exception java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: com.sun.el.ExpressionFactoryImpl at org.springframework.boot.context.embedded.tomcat.TomcatEmbeddedWebappClassLoader.loadClass(TomcatEmbeddedWebappClassLoader.java:75) at org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoader.loadClass(WebappClassLoader.java:1571) at javax.el.FactoryFinder.newInstance(FactoryFinder.java:87) at javax.el.FactoryFinder.find(FactoryFinder.java:197) at javax.el.ExpressionFactory.newInstance(ExpressionFactory.java:197) at javax.el.ExpressionFactory.newInstance(ExpressionFactory.java:168) at org.apache.jasper.compiler.PageInfo.(PageInfo.java:79)