Spring MVC Ambiguous mapping found with non-existing servlet - spring-mvc

Question

I am working on a web project developed with Spring MVC, which used to work well until yesterday, when I had the brilliant idea to refactor some parts of the code.
Now, when I launch the project, I get the following error screen:
HTTP Status 500 - Servlet.init() for servlet spring-dispatcher threw exception
type Exception report
message Servlet.init() for servlet spring-dispatcher threw exception
description The server encountered an internal error that prevented it from fulfilling this request.
exception
javax.servlet.ServletException: Servlet.init() for servlet spring-dispatcher threw exception
org.apache.catalina.authenticator.AuthenticatorBase.invoke(AuthenticatorBase.java:502)
org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:79)
org.apache.catalina.valves.AbstractAccessLogValve.invoke(AbstractAccessLogValve.java:616)
org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:528)
org.apache.coyote.http11.AbstractHttp11Processor.process(AbstractHttp11Processor.java:1099)
org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol$AbstractConnectionHandler.process(AbstractProtocol.java:670)
org.apache.tomcat.util.net.NioEndpoint$SocketProcessor.doRun(NioEndpoint.java:1520)
org.apache.tomcat.util.net.NioEndpoint$SocketProcessor.run(NioEndpoint.java:1476)
java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(Unknown Source)
java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(Unknown Source)
org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.TaskThread$WrappingRunnable.run(TaskThread.java:61)
java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
root cause
org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.annotation.RequestMappingHandlerMapping#0': Invocation of init method failed; nested exception is java.lang.IllegalStateException: Ambiguous mapping. Cannot map 'singleArticleController' method
public org.springframework.web.servlet.ModelAndView controllers.SingleArticleController.createViewArticle(models.HomeViewModel,int)
to {[/viewArticle],methods=[GET]}: There is already 'articleViewController' bean method
public org.springframework.web.servlet.ModelAndView controllers.ArticleViewController.createViewArticle(models.ArticleViewModel,int) mapped.
org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.initializeBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1578)
org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:545)
org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:482)
org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory$1.getObject(AbstractBeanFactory.java:305)
org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.getSingleton(DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.java:230)
org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.doGetBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:301)
org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.getBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:196)
org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory.preInstantiateSingletons(DefaultListableBeanFactory.java:772)
org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.finishBeanFactoryInitialization(AbstractApplicationContext.java:834)
org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.refresh(AbstractApplicationContext.java:537)
org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.configureAndRefreshWebApplicationContext(FrameworkServlet.java:667)
org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.createWebApplicationContext(FrameworkServlet.java:633)
org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.createWebApplicationContext(FrameworkServlet.java:681)
org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.initWebApplicationContext(FrameworkServlet.java:552)
org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.initServletBean(FrameworkServlet.java:493)
org.springframework.web.servlet.HttpServletBean.init(HttpServletBean.java:136)
javax.servlet.GenericServlet.init(GenericServlet.java:158)
org.apache.catalina.authenticator.AuthenticatorBase.invoke(AuthenticatorBase.java:502)
org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:79)
org.apache.catalina.valves.AbstractAccessLogValve.invoke(AbstractAccessLogValve.java:616)
org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:528)
org.apache.coyote.http11.AbstractHttp11Processor.process(AbstractHttp11Processor.java:1099)
org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol$AbstractConnectionHandler.process(AbstractProtocol.java:670)
org.apache.tomcat.util.net.NioEndpoint$SocketProcessor.doRun(NioEndpoint.java:1520)
org.apache.tomcat.util.net.NioEndpoint$SocketProcessor.run(NioEndpoint.java:1476)
java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(Unknown Source)
java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(Unknown Source)
org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.TaskThread$WrappingRunnable.run(TaskThread.java:61)
java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
As far as I understand, Spring MVC’s dispatcher servlet complains that there are two controllers (SingleArticleController and ArticleViewController) mapped to the same view (/viewArticle.jsp). But I triple-checked and there is only one servlet mapped to this view, which is ArticleViewController.
The problem is, SingleArticleController simply does not exists in the project; I guess it’s the name of an old servlet that was removed, or maybe the old name of the controller currently mapped to the view.
How can I resolve this conflict?
edit: I have already tried to clean the project and the Tomcat working dir but it didn't help

Answer 1

Eventually, I solved this problem: the class SingleArticleController was not showing up anywhere in Eclipse, however for some reason it was still in my workspace, under the controllers folder. Once I deleted it from the folder, the application worked again.
Apparently both the Eclipse clean and the Maven clean failed to solve this problem, so I had to delete the file manually from the workspace.