Spring boot app showing 404 for index.html - spring-boot

Question

I have a Spring boot application and a static index.html file located in src/main/resources/static
my controller is straight forward and looks like this
#Controller
#Log4j
public class StartController {
#Autowired
OwnerRepository ownerRepository;
#RequestMapping("/")
public String index() {
return "index";
}
}
my only configuration is the main one and it only has the #SpringBootApplication
Im getting 404 when I hit the URL, as per my understanding no further configuration is needed
by the way in the logs on the startup im seeing the following
URI Template variables for request [/index] are {}
here is my POM
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
<groupId>com.datasol</groupId>
<artifactId>alquifacil</artifactId>
<version>1.0</version>
<packaging>jar</packaging>
<name>AlquiFacil</name>
<description>spring boot</description>
<parent>
<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
<version>1.3.1.RELEASE</version>
<relativePath /> <!-- lookup parent from repository -->
</parent>
<properties>
<project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
<java.version>1.8</java.version>
</properties>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-data-jpa</artifactId>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-data-mongodb</artifactId>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.projectlombok</groupId>
<artifactId>lombok</artifactId>
<version>1.16.6</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-mail</artifactId>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-security</artifactId>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
<scope>test</scope>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
</project>

Answer 1

On your pom.xml i didn't see any template engine like Thymeleaf, Velocity ecc but you have spring-boot-starter-web, so basically you resource folder its configurated, but you should put your file index.html on templates folder. Static folder serve to contain your asset files.
If you are working local, try:
localhost:8080/ or localhost:8080/alquifacil/ assuming you are using port 8080 or add a template engine dependency in pom.xml like Thymeleaf
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-thymeleaf</artifactId>
</dependency>

Answer 2

html is a static resource
so you can access by "localhost:8080/index.html"
or
use "forward" keyword
#RequestMapping("/")
public String index() {
//has to be without blank spaces
return "forward:index.html";
}

Answer 3

please delete the target file and run again. it can be a cashing problem.