The infamous java.sql.SQLException: No suitable driver found

I'm trying to add a database-enabled JSP to an existing Tomcat 5.5 application (GeoServer 2.0.0, if that helps).

The app itself talks to Postgres just fine, so I know that the database is up, user can access it, all that good stuff. What I'm trying to do is a database query in a JSP that I've added. I've used the config example in the http://tomcat.apache.org/tomcat-5.5-doc/jndi-datasource-examples-howto.html"> Tomcat datasource example pretty much out of the box. The requisite taglibs are in the right place -- no errors occur if I just have the taglib refs, so it's finding those JARs. The postgres jdbc driver, postgresql-8.4.701.jdbc3.jar is in $CATALINA_HOME/common/lib.

Here's the top of the JSP:

<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/sql" prefix="sql" %>
<%@ taglib uri="http://java.sun.com/jsp/jstl/core" prefix="c" %>

<sql:query var="rs" dataSource="jdbc/mmas">
  select current_validstart as ValidTime from runoff_forecast_valid_time
</sql:query>

The relevant section from $CATALINA_HOME/conf/server.xml, inside the <Host> which is in turn within <Engine>:

<Context path="/gs2" allowLinking="true">
  <Resource name="jdbc/mmas" type="javax.sql.Datasource"
      auth="Container" driverClassName="org.postgresql.Driver"
      maxActive="100" maxIdle="30" maxWait="10000"
      username="mmas" password="very_secure_yess_precious!"
      url="jdbc:postgresql//localhost:5432/mmas" />
</Context>

These lines are the last in the tag in webapps/gs2/WEB-INF/web.xml:

<resource-ref>
  <description>
     The database resource for the MMAS PostGIS database
  </description>
  <res-ref-name>
     jdbc/mmas
  </res-ref-name>
  <res-type>
     javax.sql.DataSource
  </res-type>
  <res-auth>
     Container
  </res-auth>
</resource-ref>

Finally, the exception:

   exception
    org.apache.jasper.JasperException: Unable to get connection, DataSource invalid: "java.sql.SQLException: No suitable driver"
    [...wads of ensuing goo elided]
    

> The infamous java.sql.SQLException: No suitable driver found

This exception can have basically two causes:

#1. JDBC driver is not loaded

You need to ensure that the JDBC driver is placed in server's own /lib folder.

Or, when you're actually not using a server-managed connection pool data source, but are manually fiddling around with DriverManager#getConnection() in WAR, then you need to place the JDBC driver in WAR's /WEB-INF/lib and perform ..

Class.forName("com.example.jdbc.Driver");

.. in your code before the first DriverManager#getConnection() call whereby you make sure that you do not swallow/ignore any ClassNotFoundException which can be thrown by it and continue the code flow as if nothing exceptional happened. See also https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13161747/where-do-i-have-to-place-the-jdbc-driver-for-tomcats-connection-pool

#2. Or, JDBC URL is in wrong syntax

You need to ensure that the JDBC URL is conform the JDBC driver documentation and keep in mind that it's usually case sensitive. When the JDBC URL does not return true for Driver#acceptsURL() for any of the loaded drivers, then you will also get exactly this exception.

In case of PostgreSQL it is documented here.

> With JDBC, a database is represented by a URL (Uniform Resource Locator). With PostgreSQL™, this takes one of the following forms:

> - jdbc:postgresql:database > - jdbc:postgresql://host/database > - jdbc:postgresql://host:port/database

In case of MySQL it is documented here.

> The general format for a JDBC URL for connecting to a MySQL server is as follows, with items in square brackets ([ ]) being optional:

> jdbc:mysql://[host1][:port1][,[host2][:port2]]...[/[database]] » [?propertyName1=propertyValue1[&propertyName2=propertyValue2]...]

In case of Oracle it is documented here.

> There are 2 URL syntax, old syntax which will only work with SID and the new one with Oracle service name.

> Old syntax jdbc:oracle:thin:@[HOST][:PORT]:SID

> New syntax jdbc:oracle:thin:@//[HOST][:PORT]/SERVICE

---

###See also:

• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13161747/where-do-i-have-to-place-the-jdbc-driver-for-tomcats-connection-pool

• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2353141/how-to-install-mysql-jdbc-driver-in-eclipse-web-project-without-java-lang-classn

• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2299469/how-should-i-connect-to-a-mysql-data-source-in-a-servlet-based-application

• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2092659/what-is-the-difference-between-class-forname-and-class-forname-newinstanc/2093236#2093236

• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2839321/connect-java-to-a-mysql-database/2840358#2840358

I've forgot to add the PostgreSQL JDBC Driver into my project (Mvnrepository).

Gradle:

// http://mvnrepository.com/artifact/postgresql/postgresql
compile group: 'postgresql', name: 'postgresql', version: '9.0-801.jdbc4'

Maven:

<dependency>
    <groupId>postgresql</groupId>
    <artifactId>postgresql</artifactId>
    <version>9.0-801.jdbc4</version>
</dependency>

You can also download the JAR and import to your project manually.

url="jdbc:postgresql//localhost:5432/mmas"

That URL looks wrong, do you need the following?

url="jdbc:postgresql://localhost:5432/mmas"

I faced the similar issue. My Project in context is Dynamic Web Project(Java 8 + Tomcat 8) and error is for PostgreSQL Driver exception: No suitable driver found

It got resolved by adding Class.forName("org.postgresql.Driver") before calling getConnection() method

Here is my Sample Code:

try {
			Connection conn = null;
			Class.forName("org.postgresql.Driver");
			conn = DriverManager.getConnection("jdbc:postgresql://" + host + ":" + port + "/?preferQueryMode="
					+ sql_auth,sql_user , sql_password);
		} catch (Exception e) {
			System.out.println("Failed to create JDBC db connection " + e.toString() + e.getMessage());
		}

I found the followig tip helpful, to eliminate this issue in Tomcat -

be sure to load the driver first doing a Class.forName(" org.postgresql.Driver"); in your code.

This is from the post - https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/[email protected]

The jdbc code worked fine as a standalone program but, in TOMCAT it gave the error -'No suitable driver found'

No matter how old this thread becomes, people would continue to face this issue.

My Case: I have the latest (at the time of posting) OpenJDK and maven setup. I had tried all methods given above, with/out maven and even solutions on sister posts on StackOverflow. I am not using any IDE or anything else, running from bare CLI to demonstrate only the core logic.

Here's what finally worked.

• Download the driver from the official site. (for me it was MySQL https://www.mysql.com/products/connector/). Use your flavour here.
• Unzip the given jar file in the same directory as your java project. You would get a directory structure like this. If you look carefully, this exactly relates to what we try to do using Class.forName(....). The file that we want is the com/mysql/jdbc/Driver.class

• Compile the java program containing the code.

javac App.java

• Now load the director as a module by running

java --module-path com/mysql/jdbc -cp ./ App

This would load the (extracted) package manually, and your java program would find the required Driver class.

---

• Note that this was done for the mysql driver, other drivers might require minor changes.
• If your vendor provides a .deb image, you can get the jar from /usr/share/java/your-vendor-file-here.jar

It might be worth noting that this can also occur when Windows blocks downloads that it considers to be unsafe. This can be addressed by right-clicking the jar file (such as ojdbc7.jar), and checking the 'Unblock' box at the bottom.

Windows JAR File Properties Dialog:

As well as adding the MySQL JDBC connector ensure the context.xml (if not unpacked in the Tomcat webapps folder) with your DB connection definitions are included within Tomcats conf directory.

A very silly mistake which could be possible resulting is adding of space at the start of the JDBC URL connection.

What I mean is:-

suppose u have bymistake given the jdbc url like

String jdbcUrl=" jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/web_customer_tracker?useSSL=false&serverTimeZone=UTC";

(Notice there is a space in the staring of the url, this will make the error)

the correct way should be:

String jdbcUrl="jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/web_customer_tracker?useSSL=false&serverTimeZone=UTC";

(Notice no space in the staring, you may give space at the end of the url but it is safe not to)

Run java with CLASSPATH environmental variable pointing to driver's JAR file, e.g.

CLASSPATH='.:drivers/mssql-jdbc-6.2.1.jre8.jar' java ConnectURL

Where drivers/mssql-jdbc-6.2.1.jre8.jar is the path to driver file (e.g. JDBC for for SQL Server).

The ConnectURL is the sample app from that driver (samples/connections/ConnectURL.java), compiled via javac ConnectURL.java.

I was using jruby, in my case I created under config/initializers

postgres_driver.rb

$CLASSPATH << '~/.rbenv/versions/jruby-1.7.17/lib/ruby/gems/shared/gems/jdbc-postgres-9.4.1200/lib/postgresql-9.4-1200.jdbc4.jar'

or wherever your driver is, and that's it !

I had this exact issue when developing a Spring Boot application in STS, but ultimately deploying the packaged war to WebSphere(v.9). Based on previous answers my situation was unique. ojdbc8.jar was in my WEB-INF/lib folder with Parent Last class loading set, but always it says it failed to find the suitable driver.

My ultimate issue was that I was using the incorrect DataSource class because I was just following along with online tutorials/examples. Found the hint thanks to David Dai comment on his own question here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/17907863/spring-jdbc-could-not-load-jdbc-driver-class-oracle-jdbc-driver-oracledriver

Also later found spring guru example with Oracle specific driver: https://springframework.guru/configuring-spring-boot-for-oracle/

Example that throws error using org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.DriverManagerDataSource based on generic examples.

@Config
@EnableTransactionManagement
public class appDataConfig {
 \* Other Bean Defs *\
    @Bean
    public DataSource dataSource() {
        // configure and return the necessary JDBC DataSource
    	DriverManagerDataSource dataSource = new DriverManagerDataSource("jdbc:oracle:thin:@//HOST:PORT/SID", "user", "password");
    	dataSource.setSchema("MY_SCHEMA");
    	return dataSource;
    }
}

And the corrected exapmle using a oracle.jdbc.pool.OracleDataSource:

@Config
@EnableTransactionManagement
public class appDataConfig {
/* Other Bean Defs */
@Bean
    public DataSource dataSource() {
        // configure and return the necessary JDBC DataSource
    	OracleDataSource datasource = null;
		try {
			datasource = new OracleDataSource();
		} catch (SQLException e) {
			// TODO Auto-generated catch block
			e.printStackTrace();
		}
    	
    	datasource.setURL("jdbc:oracle:thin:@//HOST:PORT/SID");
    	datasource.setUser("user");
    	datasource.setPassword("password");
    	
    	return datasource;
    }
}

I was having the same issue with mysql datasource using spring data that would work outside but gave me this error when deployed on tomcat.

The error went away when I added the driver jar mysql-connector-java-8.0.16.jar to the jres lib/ext folder

However I did not want to do this in production for fear of interfering with other applications. Explicity defining the driver class solved this issue for me

    spring.datasource.driver-class-name: com.mysql.cj.jdbc.Driver

In my case I was working on a Java project with Maven and encountered this error. In your pom.xml file make sure you have this dependencies

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>mysql</groupId>
      <artifactId>mysql-connector-java</artifactId>
      <version>8.0.11</version>
    </dependency>
  </dependencies>

and where you create connection have something like this

public Connection createConnection() {
        try {
            String url = "jdbc:mysql://localhost:3306/yourDatabaseName";
            String username = "root"; //your my sql username here
            String password = "1234"; //your mysql password here

            Class.forName("com.mysql.cj.jdbc.Driver");
            return DriverManager.getConnection(url, username, password);
        } catch (SQLException | ClassNotFoundException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }

        return null;
    }

You will get this same error if there is not a Resource definition provided somewhere for your app -- most likely either in the central context.xml, or individual context file in conf/Catalina/localhost. And if using individual context files, beware that Tomcat freely deletes them anytime you remove/undeploy the corresponding .war file.

For me the same error occurred while connecting to postgres while creating a dataframe from table .It was caused due to,the missing dependency. jdbc dependency was not set .I was using maven for the build ,so added the required dependency to the pom file from maven dependency

jdbc dependency

For me adding below dependency to pom.xml file just solved like magic! I had no mysql connector dependency and even adding mssql jdbc jar file to build path did not work either.

	<dependency> 
        <groupId>com.microsoft.sqlserver</groupId>
		<artifactId>mssql-jdbc</artifactId>
		<version>9.4.0.jre11</version>
	</dependency>

Summary:

• Soln2 (recommend)::

  • 1 . put mysql-connector-java-8.0.28.jar file in the <where you install your Tomcat>/lib.

• Soln1::

  • 1 . put mysql-connector-java-8.0.28.jar file in the WEB-INF/lib.
  • 2 . use Class.forName("com.mysql.cj.jdbc.Driver"); in your Servlet Java code.

---

Soln1 (Ori Ans) _^//-20220304

In short:

1. make sure you have the mysql-connector-java-8.0.28.jar file in the WEB-INF/lib
2. make sure you use the Class.forName("com.mysql.cj.jdbc.Driver");

---

additional notes (not important), base on my trying (could be wrong)::

• 1.1 putting the jar directly inside the Java build path doesnt work

• 1.2. putting the jar in Data management > Driver Def > MySQL JDBC Driver > then add it as library to Java Build path doesnt work.

• 1.3 => it has to be inside the WEB-INF/lib (I dont know why)

• 1.4 using version mysql-connector-java-8.0.28.jar works, only version 5.1 available in Eclipse MySQL JDBC Driver setting doesnt matter, ignore it.

  https://stackoverflow.com/questions/62793949/how-to-connect-to-mysql-8-0-database-using-eclipse-database-management-perspecti >

•     Class.forName("com.mysql.cj.jdbc.Driver");
      Class.forName("com.mysql.jdbc.Driver");
  

  both works, but the Class.forName("com.mysql.jdbc.Driver"); is deprecated.

  Loading class `com.mysql.jdbc.Driver'. This is deprecated. The new driver class is `com.mysql.cj.jdbc.Driver'. The driver is automatically registered via the SPI and manual loading of the driver class is generally unnecessary.
  

  https://www.yawintutor.com/no-suitable-driver-found-for-jdbcmysql-localhost3306-testdb/ >

• > If you want to connect to a MySQL database, you can use the type-4 driver named Connector/} that's available for free from the MySQL website. However, this driver is typically included in Tomcat's lib directory. As a result, you don't usually need to download this driver from the MySQL site. > > -- Murach’s Java Servlets and JSP

  I cant find the driver in Tomcat that the author is talking about, I need to use the mysql-connector-java-8.0.28.jar. <(striked-out) see updated answer soln2 below>

• > If you're working with an older version of Java, though, you need to use the forName method of the Class class to explicitly load the driver before you call the getConnection method > > Even with JDBC 4.0, you sometimes get a message that says, "No suitable driver found." In that case, you can use the forName method of the Class class to explicitly load the driver. However, if automatic driver loading works, it usually makes sense to remove this method call from your code. > > How to load a MySQL database driver prior to JDBC 4.0 > > Class.forName{"com.mysql.jdbc.Driver"); > > -- Murach’s Java Servlets and JSP

  I have to use Class.forName("com.mysql.cj.jdbc.Driver"); in my system, no automatic class loading. Not sure why. <(striked-out) see updated answer soln2 below>

• When I am using a normal Java Project instead of a Dynamic Web Project in Eclipse,

  I only need to add the mysql-connector-java-8.0.28.jar to Java Build Path directly,

  then I can connect to the JDBC with no problem.

  However, if I am using Dynamic Web Project (which is in this case), those 2 strict rules applies (jar position & class loading).

  https://stackoverflow.com/questions/44027099/tomcat-on-eclipse-java-sql-sqlexception-no-suitable-driver-found-for-jdbcmysql >

---

Soln2 (Updated Ans) _{^{//-20220305_12}}

In short:

• 1 . put mysql-connector-java-8.0.28.jar file in the <where you install your Tomcat>/lib.

  eg: G:\pla\Java\apache-tomcat-10.0.16\lib\mysql-connector-java-8.0.28.jar

  (and for an Eclipse Dynamic Web Project, the jar will then be automatically put inside in your project's Java build path > Server Runtime [Apache Tomcat v10.0].)

---

Additional notes::

for soln1::

> 1. put mysql-connector-java-8.0.28.jar file in the WEB-INF/lib. > 2. use Class.forName("com.mysql.cj.jdbc.Driver"); in your Servlet Java code.

this will create an WARNING:

WARNING: The web application [LearnJDBC] appears to have started a thread named [mysql-cj-abandoned-connection-cleanup] but has failed to stop it. This is very likely to create a memory leak. Stack trace of thread:

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/25699985/the-web-application-appears-to-have-started-a-thread-named-abandoned-connect >

and that answer led me to soln2.

for soln2::

• > 1. put mysql-connector-java-8.0.28.jar file in the <where you install your Tomcat>/lib.

  this will create an INFO:

  INFO: At least one JAR was scanned for TLDs yet contained no TLDs. Enable debug logging for this logger for a complete list of JARs that were scanned but no TLDs were found in them. Skipping unneeded JARs during scanning can improve startup time and JSP compilation time.
  

• you can just ignore it.

  https://stackoverflow.com/questions/40204124/how-to-fix-jars-that-were-scanned-but-no-tlds-were-found-in-them-in-tomcat-9 >

• (you should now understand what Murach’s Java Servlets and JSP was talking about: the jar in Tomcat/lib & the no need for Class.forName("com.mysql.cj.jdbc.Driver");)

• to kinda fix it _{^{//-20220307_23}}

  > Tomcat 8.5. Inside catalina.properties, located in the /conf directory set: > tomcat.util.scan.StandardJarScanFilter.jarsToSkip=\*.jar > > https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14375673/how-to-fix-jsp-compiler-warning-one-jar-was-scanned-for-tlds-yet-contained-no-t

  

I ran into the same error. In my case, the JDBC URL was correct, but the issue was with classpath. However, adding MySQL connector's JAR file to the -classpath or -cp (or in the case of an IDE, as a library) also doesn't resolve the issue. I will have to move the JAR file to the location of Java bycode and run java -cp :mysql_connector.jar to make this work. I'm leaving this here in case someone ran into the same issue as that of mine.

I encountered this issue by putting a XML file into the src/main/resources wrongly, I deleted it and then all back to normal.