Spring + JPA + Hibernate - IllegalStateException: BeanFactory not initialized or already closed - spring

Question

I tried to look at similar threads, but I cannot figure out the mistake I am doing and that is causing the following error during deploy:
SEVERE: Exception sending context destroyed event to listener instance of class org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener
java.lang.IllegalStateException: BeanFactory not initialized or already closed - call 'refresh' before accessing beans via the ApplicationContext
applicationContext.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
xmlns:tx="http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx" xmlns:jpa="http://www.springframework.org/schema/data/jpa"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans.xsd
http://www.springframework.org/schema/context http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context.xsd http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx/spring-tx-3.2.xsd">
<context:property-placeholder location="classpath*:spring/*.properties" />
<context:component-scan base-package="com.lh.clte" />
<bean id="dataSource" class="org.apache.commons.dbcp.BasicDataSource">
<property name="driverClassName" value="${database.driverClassName}" />
<property name="url" value="${database.url}" />
<property name="username" value="${database.username}" />
<property name="password" value="${database.password}" />
<property name="initialSize" value="3" />
<property name="maxActive" value="10" />
</bean>
<tx:annotation-driven mode="proxy" transaction-manager="transactionManager"/>
<bean
class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.LocalContainerEntityManagerFactoryBean"
id="entityManagerFactory">
<property name="persistenceUnitName" value="persistenceUnit" />
<property name="dataSource" ref="dataSource" />
</bean>
<bean class="org.springframework.orm.jpa.JpaTransactionManager"
id="transactionManager">
<property name="entityManagerFactory" ref="entityManagerFactory" />
</bean>
<import resource="classpath:persistence.xml" />
</beans>
database.properties is correctly placed and loaded
persistence.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<persistence xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" version="2.0"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/persistence/persistence_2_0.xsd">
<persistence-unit name="persistenceUnit"
transaction-type="RESOURCE_LOCAL">
<provider>org.hibernate.ejb.HibernatePersistence</provider>
<properties>
<property name="hibernate.dialect" value="org.hibernate.dialect.MySQL5InnoDBDialect" />
<property name="hibernate.hbm2ddl.auto" value="update" />
<property name="hibernate.ejb.naming_strategy" value="org.hibernate.cfg.ImprovedNamingStrategy" />
<property name="hibernate.connection.charSet" value="UTF-8" />
</properties>
</persistence-unit>
</persistence>
When I drop the import line in the application context I get a different exception (i.e. no persistence unit with the given name); persistence.xml is located at \src\main\resources\persistence.xml.
web.xml
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<web-app xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee
http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/javaee/web-app_3_0.xsd"
id="WebApp_ID" version="3.0">
<display-name>CLTE Rest Server</display-name>
<context-param>
<param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
<param-value>classpath:spring/applicationContext.xml</param-value>
</context-param>
<listener>
<listener-class>org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener</listener-class>
</listener>
<servlet>
<servlet-name>rest</servlet-name>
<servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
<load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>
<servlet-mapping>
<servlet-name>rest</servlet-name>
<url-pattern>/*</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>
</web-app>
Removing, from the application context, from line "" to the import declaration (both included), deploy can be correctly concluded.

Answer 1

Do not <import /> persistence.xml since it is not a spring configuration file. Rather, move it to META-INF/persistence.xml which is the default location.