If you are using IE, check that the "Automatically detect settings" option for LAN settings (Internet Options) is turned off

Please report the NullPointerExceptio to http://jakarta.apache.org/site/bugs.html as a bug. Include as much detail as you can.

The 502 is odd; you may want to ask on the tomcat-user mailing list.

The 502 Bad Gateway it's a standard httpd response. It doesn't look like coming from a firewall, but it could be.

What it looks wierd is the second error, the LifecycleException. That message clearly states that the "Container" hasn't been started, and the shutdown listener is not listening.

Your idea of the port not available could be valid. If the port that Tomcat uses for shutting the server down is already in use, then you should get the "port already in use" message, unless the output it's not captured (have you the debug flag set?) or not sent to the console.

Normally if one port is already in use, the entire server cannot start and, then, when you try to shutdown you get a "Connection Refused" exception. But if the port in use is the sutdown port, then the message that you're getting could almost make sense because the shutdown client it's trying to talk with something and it's getting a wrong answer back, so it's assuming that the Container is not there (It's just a theory, don't shoot at me, please).

Maybe, the problem could be just a typo in the server.xml configuration file, have you changed id?

I've never installed Tomcat 4, so I've ran out of ideas.

Regards.

It can happen if there is a firewall blocking to http://host:8080/webdav. Check firewall configuration and let us know.