What is the relationship between Field 'SYSTEM_PROPERTIES_MODE_ENVIRONMENT' and PropertyPlaceHolderConfigurer?

I am using spring 3.0.6-RELEASE for a basic form based webapp and running into the following error on startup with PropertyPlaceHolderConfigurer. Not sure what's causing this as injecting the property pre-mvc3 was done through beans and now using annotation and it appears quite straight-forward atleast from the docs/other posts. However the exception during tomcat server startup complains of org.springframework.core.ConstantException: Field 'SYSTEM_PROPERTIES_MODE_ENVIRONMENT' not found in class [org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer] Here is what I have in spring-servlet.xml ``` <context:property-placeholder location="/WEB-INF/classes/spring.properties"/> ``` and my controller class ``` @Controller @RequestMapping("/home") public class HomeController { // @Resource(name="broomManager") @Autowired private broomManager broomManager; private @Value("${spring.broom.maxFileSize}") String inMemoryMaxFileSize; private @Value("${spring.broom.fileDestination}") String destFilePath; ``` .. spring.properties ``` broom.maxFileSize=100000 broom.fileDestination=/Users/foobar/broom/files/ ``` Exception during startup ``` 2012-06-08 02:51:31,900 [ContainerBackgroundProcessor[StandardEngine[Catalina]]] ERROR org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet - Context initialization failed org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer#0': Error setting property values; nested exception is org.springframework.beans.PropertyBatchUpdateException; nested PropertyAccessExceptions (1) are: PropertyAccessException 1: org.springframework.beans.MethodInvocationException: Property 'systemPropertiesModeName' threw exception; nested exception is org.springframework.core.ConstantException: Field 'SYSTEM_PROPERTIES_MODE_ENVIRONMENT' not found in class [org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer] at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.applyPropertyValues(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1361) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.populateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1086) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:517) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:456) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory$1.getObject(AbstractBeanFactory.java:293) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.getSingleton(DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.java:222) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.doGetBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:290) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.getBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:196) at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.invokeBeanFactoryPostProcessors(AbstractApplicationContext.java:626) at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.refresh(AbstractApplicationContext.java:407) at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.createWebApplicationContext(FrameworkServlet.java:467) at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.createWebApplicationContext(FrameworkServlet.java:483) at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.initWebApplicationContext(FrameworkServlet.java:358) at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.initServletBean(FrameworkServlet.java:325) at org.springframework.web.servlet.HttpServletBean.init(HttpServletBean.java:127) at javax.servlet.GenericServlet.init(GenericServlet.java:212) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapper.loadServlet(StandardWrapper.java:1139) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapper.load(StandardWrapper.java:966) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.loadOnStartup(StandardContext.java:3956) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.start(StandardContext.java:4230) at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChildInternal(ContainerBase.java:760) at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChild(ContainerBase.java:740) at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.addChild(StandardHost.java:544) at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployWAR(HostConfig.java:831) at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployWARs(HostConfig.java:720) at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployApps(HostConfig.java:490) at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.check(HostConfig.java:1217) at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.lifecycleEvent(HostConfig.java:293) at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleSupport.fireLifecycleEvent(LifecycleSupport.java:120) at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.backgroundProcess(ContainerBase.java:1306) at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$ContainerBackgroundProcessor.processChildren(ContainerBase.java:1570) at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$ContainerBackgroundProcessor.processChildren(ContainerBase.java:1579) at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$ContainerBackgroundProcessor.run(ContainerBase.java:1559) at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:680) Caused by: org.springframework.beans.PropertyBatchUpdateException; nested PropertyAccessExceptions (1) are: PropertyAccessException 1: org.springframework.beans.MethodInvocationException: Property 'systemPropertiesModeName' threw exception; nested exception is org.springframework.core.ConstantException: Field 'SYSTEM_PROPERTIES_MODE_ENVIRONMENT' not found in class [org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer] at org.springframework.beans.AbstractPropertyAccessor.setPropertyValues(AbstractPropertyAccessor.java:102) at org.springframework.beans.AbstractPropertyAccessor.setPropertyValues(AbstractPropertyAccessor.java:58) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.applyPropertyValues(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1358) ... 33 more ```