The separate XML solution never worked for me and other's recently ...
I usually follow this process and something helps:
- Stop the server (Make sure its stopped via Task Manager, I killed javaw.exe as many times Eclipse doesn't really shut down properly)
- Right click the Server->'Add and Remove'. Remove the project. Finish.
- Right click the Server->'Add and Remove'. Add the project. Finish.
- Restart see if works, if not continue
- Double click the Server... See where its getting published (Server Path: which I think goes to a tmp# directory for me since I use an already-installed Tomcat instance I re-use, not sure if would be different if use Eclipse's internal/bundled tomcat server)
- Right click on Server and 'Clean' ... Last one worked for me last time (so may want to try this first), Adding/Removing project worked for me other times. If doesn't work, continue ...
- Delete all files from the Server Path and see if all files actually get built and published there (/WEB-INF/classes and other regular files in / webroot).
- Restart Eclipse and/or machine (not sure I ever needed to get to this point)