Tiles resource not loading after upgrading to Spring 4.1 - spring

Question

I was using Spring 3.1 Java 1.7 and Tiles 2. The Spring located and loaded the tiles resource fine. However, after upgrading to Spring 4.1 and Java 1.8 the tiles is not loading up regardless of returning the string from the spring controller or using ModelAndView (It says ModelAndView is null when debugged).
I have given my configurations below:
DispatcherServlet contextConfiguration xml config:
<property name="viewResolvers">
<list>
<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver" id="partialViewResolver"
p:contentType="application/partial-html">
<property name="order" value="1"/>
<property name="prefix" value="/WEB-INF/views/"/>
<property name="suffix" value=".jspx"/>
</bean>
<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.UrlBasedViewResolver" id="tilesViewResolver"
p:contentType="text/html">
<property name="order" value="2"/>
<property name="viewClass" value="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.tiles2.TilesView"/>
</bean>
</list>
</property>
....
....
<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.UrlBasedViewResolver" id="tilesViewResolver">
<property name="viewClass" value="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.tiles2.TilesView"/>
</bean>
<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.tiles2.TilesConfigurer" id="tilesConfigurer">
<property name="definitions">
<list>
<value>/WEB-INF/layouts/layouts.xml</value>
<!-- Scan views directory for Tiles configurations -->
<value>/WEB-INF/views/**/views.xml</value>
</list>
</property>
</bean>
pom.xml
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.tiles</groupId>
<artifactId>tiles-jsp</artifactId>
<version>2.2.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.tiles</groupId>
<artifactId>tiles-core</artifactId>
<version>2.2.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.tiles</groupId>
<artifactId>tiles-api</artifactId>
<version>2.2.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.tiles</groupId>
<artifactId>tiles-servlet</artifactId>
<version>2.2.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.tiles</groupId>
<artifactId>tiles-template</artifactId>
<version>2.2.2</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.tiles</groupId>
<artifactId>tiles-el</artifactId>
<version>2.2.2</version>
</dependency>
Controller method code:
#RequestMapping(produces = {"text/html", "application/partial-html"})
public String list(Model uiModel) {
uiModel.addAttribute("xxx", new XXX());
return "xxx/list";
}
layouts.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE tiles-definitions PUBLIC "-//Apache Software Foundation//DTD Tiles Configuration 2.1//EN"
"http://tiles.apache.org/dtds/tiles-config_2_1.dtd">
<tiles-definitions>
<definition name="default" template="/WEB-INF/layouts/default.jspx">
<put-attribute name="header" value="/WEB-INF/views/header.jspx" />
<put-attribute name="menu" value="/WEB-INF/views/menu.jspx" />
<put-attribute name="footer" value="/WEB-INF/views/footer.jspx" />
</definition>
<definition name="noLogin" template="/WEB-INF/layouts/noLogin.jspx">
<put-attribute name="header" value="/WEB-INF/views/header.jspx" />
<put-attribute name="menu" value="/WEB-INF/views/menu.jspx" />
<put-attribute name="footer" value="/WEB-INF/views/footer.jspx" />
</definition>
<definition name="onlyContent" template="/WEB-INF/layouts/onlyContent.jspx">
</definition>
<definition name="public" template="/WEB-INF/layouts/default.jspx">
<put-attribute name="header" value="/WEB-INF/views/header.jspx" />
<put-attribute name="footer" value="/WEB-INF/views/footer.jspx" />
</definition>
<definition name="loginTemplate" template="/WEB-INF/layouts/default.jspx">
<!--<put-attribute name="footer" value="/WEB-INF/views/footer.jspx" />-->
</definition>
</tiles-definitions>
views.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<!DOCTYPE tiles-definitions PUBLIC "-//Apache Software Foundation//DTD Tiles Configuration 2.1//EN"
"http://tiles.apache.org/dtds/tiles-config_2_1.dtd">
<tiles-definitions>
<definition extends="default" name="xxx/list">
<put-attribute name="body" value="/WEB-INF/views/xxx/list.jspx"/>
</definition>
</tiles-definitions>