In spite of the explicit dependency-management section in the pom, the slf4j-api 1.5.3 gets pulled in from the jackrabbit-jcr-server.

(the following notes are to help provide someone assistance in troubleshooting this issue if they have it in the future, so they will know to look for conflicting slf4j-api versions)

Having slf4j-api 1.5.3 and 1.5.6 in the classpath at the startup of the app causes this to happen when you start up the app:

INFO: Deploying web application archive magnoliaAuthor.war
Nov 21, 2009 2:55:01 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext start
SEVERE: Error listenerStart
Nov 21, 2009 2:55:01 PM org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext start
SEVERE: Context [/magnoliaAuthor] startup failed due to previous errors

If you look at the localhost.log it is a bit more helpful and at least points out that it's an issue with slf4j-api

SEVERE: Error configuring application listener of class info.magnolia.cms.servlets.MgnlServletContextListener
java.lang.IllegalAccessError: tried to access field org.slf4j.impl.StaticLoggerBinder.SINGLETON from class org.slf4j.LoggerFactory

(with a stacktrace).

I can fix this in my app by including the webdav like this:

<dependency>
<groupId>info.magnolia</groupId>
<artifactId>magnolia-module-webdav</artifactId>
<version>1.0-m2</version>
<exclusions>
<exclusion>
<groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
<artifactId>slf4j-api</artifactId>
</exclusion>
</exclusions>
</dependency>