Common Apache CXF Error with WebSphere App server 6.1 and WSFP
Symptom :
After you have installed the web services feature pack for WAS 6.1, you try to install an application running Apache CXF. While the application compiles fine, it simply will not start, and the SystemOut.log (or console) shows the following error message:
at org.apache.axis2.jaxws.ExceptionFactory.createWebServiceException(ExceptionFactory.java:178)
at org.apache.axis2.jaxws.ExceptionFactory.makeWebServiceException(ExceptionFactory.java:79)
at org.apache.axis2.jaxws.ExceptionFactory.makeWebServiceException(ExceptionFactory.java:125)
First, the cause of the problem: WAS with the Web Services Feature Pack installed tries to scan ALL of the code for JAX-WS annotations, including those jars in your WEB-INF/lib directory. It bombs out on the cxf-rt-frontend-js-2.1.jar. Most of the time this jar is not needed.
Now, the solution: If you are only using the CXF-2.x.jar, then you need to remove it and add back in ALL the jars in the modules directory of CXF except cxf-rt-frontend-js-2.1.jar. Then, recompile and redeploy to WAS. It should start up fine.