Can't find bundle for base name javax.faces.Messages, locale en_US

This is another one of those error messages that, if you Google it, will bring back a LOT of message board posts and Jira entries and most of them won't help.

This post will talk specifically about times when this error message is thrown and the first two lines look like this:

java.util.MissingResourceException: Can't find bundle for base name javax.faces.Messages, locale en_US java.util.ResourceBundle.throwMissingResourceException(ResourceBundle.java:1427)

This one is what you get when you try and submit a JSF form.

I'm using:

Liferay 6.0.6

ICEfaces 1.8.1

Windows 7

In my case, I was modifying a portlet originally built for Liferay 4 and ICEfaces 1.7 to make it run on Liferay 6.

What was happening is the message-override.properties file wasn't being found. Now, a lot of people have a lot of different ideas on what folder that file goes in, and yet seldom mention the other half of the problem. You see, you have to tell JSF about this file, and that means going into the faces-config.xml.

<message-bundle>messages-override</message-bundle>

And make sure that goes in your <application> block.

And where should that file be? In WEB-INF/classes.

"So, how do you get that in Maven?"

Getting this messages-override.properties file into WEB-INF/classes isn't hard, but it isn't intuitive either if you're not used to dealing with Maven. In your project file structure, create a folder called resources under main. Your file goes there. When Maven is building your .war file, it'll take whatever is in resources and put it in WEB-INF/classes for you.