Web application restarts when JSP or .class files on disk change

Question

Hello,
I am deploying a Spring enabled web application into WLS 12 using IntelliJ11.
I am building an exploded war in a target directory and have my WLS domain's config.xml set up to pick up the application from that directory directly. I am not using a staging approach.
The application starts up fine in debug mode in IntelliJ 11. I am able to make changes to Java classes, hit Ctrl+F9 to "Make the Project" and changed Java classes get reloaded and I see the changes I have made.
All this happens without WLS reloading the web application, which is as it should be.
When I try to make changes to JSPs, I start seeing a different behavior. This is how I'm changing my JSPs:
1) I edit the file in IntelliJ.
2) I hit Ctrl+F9....nothing happens, I don't see my changes in the JSP, I don't see any web application restarts. This is because with a Ctrl+F9, IntelliJ does not update the JSP in the target directory.
3) When I hit Ctrl+F10 instead, i.e. "Update application", IntelliJ presents me with a choice to "Update resources", "Update classes & resources", "redeploy", "restart the server".
I choose "Update resources"
When I do this, I see on the file system that IntelliJ has changed the JSP in the target directory. As it should. WLS is also using this directory, so it should see the changed JSP and recompile and show me my changes.
Now when I access the application, I see varying behavior.
Sometimes I see my JSP changes just fine and sometimes instead of seeing my changes, my entire web application starts shutting down and attempts to restart. Note, I said the web application and not the WLS server.
It's almost as if I've hit a Redeploy.
I have disabled "Fast Swap", as I cannot get my Spring application context to load when this is enabled. So, I'm just using Hot Swap.
Why is WLS restarting my web application once in a while when my JSPs change?
And this is not restricted to JSP files only. If I choose the option to "Update classes & resources", any Java classes I've changed get updated on the disk in the target directory. Now WLS once in a while decides that it needs to restart my web application. I can get away with hitting Ctrl+F9, which does not update the .class on the disk and only in the JVM, and see my changes.
But I have no such option for JSPs. So hot swap essentially is erratic for JSPs in my deployment in WLS 12.

Answer 1

There is a workaround for this. Not pretty, but it works for me.
Instead of having IntelliJ update the exploded war when I do a Make (Ctrl+F9), I tell IntelliJ to NOT do any updates to the artifact on the disk.
That is, just compile. As explained before, that works for changes to Java classes. IntelliJ/Java does a hot swap in memory, so your Java changes are seen.
Now for JSPs. Write an ant target that copies the JSPs into the deployed exploded war.
For some reason, when ant does the copying, WLS doesn't freak out and decide to restart the web application. I have no idea why. I did a directory compare when IntelliJ did the copying, and the only thing that had changed was the JSP I had modified.
Anyways that's one solution.
The other is, as my colleague tested out, run in Production mode, and have the jsp reload check parameter set to 0, which means check the JSPs always. This is needed because in Production mode, -1 is the default value, which means never check for JSP changes.