UTFDataFormatException

Tomcat server does not start and throws UTFDataFormatException in console

[anejoel]

I'm working on a web application that uses Apache Tomcat and MS SQL Server. Suddently, I'm not able to start the tomcat server and the console displays the following error:

Catalina.start: java.io.UTFDataFormatException: Invalid byte 1 of 1-byte
UTF-8 sequence.
java.io.UTFDataFormatException: Invalid byte 1 of 1-byte UTF-8 sequence.
at org.apache.xerces.impl.io.UTF8Reader.invalidByte(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.xerces.impl.io.UTF8Reader.read(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLEntityScanner.load(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLEntityScanner.peekChar(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLScanner.scanComment(Unknown Source)
at
org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.scanComment(Unknown
Source)
at
org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl$FragmentContentDispatcher.dispatch(Unknown

Source)
at
org.apache.xerces.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.scanDocument(Unknown
Source)
at org.apache.xerces.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(Unknown
Source)
at org.apache.xerces.parsers.DTDConfiguration.parse(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.xerces.parsers.XMLParser.parse(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.xerces.parsers.AbstractSAXParser.parse(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.commons.digester.Digester.parse(Digester.java:1548)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.load(Catalina.java:515)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.load(Catalina.java:553)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at
sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)

etc.

Can anyone let me know what could be the reason for this error? I need to fix this immediately, So ppl kindly help me if you are aware of the reason for this issue..

Thanks,
Ane