org.apache.tomcat.util.bcel.classfile.ClassFormatException: Invalid byte tag in constant pool: 15

The "offical answer" is that Tomcat 7 runs on Java 8, see http://tomcat.apache.org/whichversion.html ("Java version 6 and later").

However, if annotation scanning is enabled (metadata-complete="true" in web.xml) there are some issues due to BCEL (not able to process the new Java 8 byte codes). You will get exceptions like (at least with Tomcat 7.0.28):

SEVERE: Unable to process Jar entry [jdk/nashorn/internal/objects/NativeString.class] from Jar [jar:file:/usr/lib/jvm/jdk1.8.0_5/jre/lib/ext/nashorn.jar!/] for annotations
org.apache.tomcat.util.bcel.classfile.ClassFormatException: Invalid byte tag in constant pool: 15
    at org.apache.tomcat.util.bcel.classfile.Constant.readConstant(Constant.java:131)

If not using annotation scanning, everything works fine, starting release 7.0.53 (updated compiler with better Java 8 support).

(UPDATE 2014-10-17) If your are using annotation scanning and your own code is not Java 8 based, another solution is to add the following line in /etc/tomcat7/catalina.properties (text added after "ant-launcher.jar" so part of property tomcat.util.scan.DefaultJarScanner.jarsToSkip):

junit.jar,junit-*.jar,ant-launcher.jar,\
jfxrt.jar,nashorn.jar

Tested with Tomcat 7.0.28 and Oracle JDK 8_25 on Debian 7.6.

This was a Tomcat bug that resurfaced again with the Java 9 bytecode. The exact versions which fix this (for both Java 8/9 bytecode) are:

• trunk for 9.0.0.M18 onwards
• 8.5.x for 8.5.12 onwards
• 8.0.x for 8.0.42 onwards
• 7.0.x for 7.0.76 onwards

Update to Tomcat 7.0.58 (or newer).

See: https://bz.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=57173#c16

The performance improvement that triggered this regression has been reverted from from trunk, 8.0.x (for 8.0.16 onwards) and 7.0.x (for 7.0.58 onwards) and will not be reapplied.