WAS, How to fix: Application already exists in the configuration repository

Application already exists in the configuration repository

If you are getting this error it means that you have screwed you Websphere Application Server application to a very good extend that now you cannot deploy or un-deploy that particular application.

In order to fix this issue we need to do a manual process of deleting the application

Steps:

  1. Stop the Websphere Application Server
  2. Do a search for your ear file in the file system and delete all the occurrences of the XXX.ear folder
  3. Once we deleted these entire XXX.ear folders, delete all the contents of temp and wstemp folder.
  4. Now go to WAS_INSTALL_DIRprofiles<profileName>defaultconfigcells<cellName>nodes<nodeName>
  5. Edit the file serverindex.xml for an entry for our application within the tag
    <deployedApplications>xxx.ear</deployedApplications>
  6. Restart the Websphere Application Server
  7. Redeploy the application to the Websphere Application Server

38 thoughts to “WAS, How to fix: Application already exists in the configuration repository”

  1. This isthe biggest pointless pieces of crappy software that exists on this planet. WEBSPHERE MUST DIE, piece of crap rational.

      1. sometimes delete all *.ear folders may make the server “page not found” while trying to restart.
        you may try to delete all “last modified” files (not folders) in those *.ear folders.
        obviously it will include *.jar files of the last installation.

        it works for me.

  2. This isthe biggest pointless pieces of crappy software that exists on this planet. WEBSPHERE MUST DIE, piece of crap rational.

  3. This isthe biggest pointless pieces of crappy software that exists on this planet. WEBSPHERE MUST DIE, piece of crap rational.

  4. This is great information.  I’ve been deploying ear files for years and encountered this problem for the first time, now sure how.  And, this helped, THANKS!!!

    1. Ahmed

      I am glad to hear that this helped. When I wrote this blog many years ago I never knew this will be useful even after years. I remember I spent few weeks before I was able to find this solution. I am glad this was of some help.

        1. Hi Parineeta, I hope by this time you were able to solve this. I have been out of the tech development world for sometime and unable to help you more on this. Thanks for understanding me.

    1. Hi Akhilesh, I hope by this time you were able to solve this. I have been out of the tech development world for sometime and unable to help you more on this. Thanks for understanding me.

  5. This error can come under following conditions:
    Deploying an application and it already exists
    Re-Deploying an application whose deployment failed before for some reason
    undeployment failed but there is no reference of the application in admin console

    For example, you are deploying a large application using wsadmin and got a soap timeout or out of memory before application is saved. Then you change the timeout/heap and try to deploy your applciation… in this case above error can come

    NOW This states that the configurations are inconsistent states.
    for us it happened while using SOAP (wsadmin).So the best solution is to use the same.

    USE wsadmin :
    $AdminApp install $ear_fileName -node $nodeName -cell $cellName -server $serverName -appname $appName
    $AdminConfig save

    Check out for wsadmin for full details.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.