Slow to start after upgraded to Spring 3
On the surface it actually looks like an AOPConfig issue. Are you using any Aspects ? Obviously it is trying to intercept a method call.
It is complaining directly about and AOPConfig exception so there must be something going on with the AOP side of things.
Either you introduced the bug by using AOP or you have not upgraded to Spring 3 correctly and there are issues with the AOP useage built into Spring 3 ie your config is fishy.
Check the Spring configs and ensure you have upgraded correctly.
Note: it looks like you are using autowire in Spring, which means some part of your config might not be autowiring correctly according to the Spring rules.
Assuming that you are not intrested to advise any of the methods listed in your debug log and depending on which logging framework you use, change the log level of package you are not intrested in to INFO or higher.
For example if you are using LOG4J
log4j.logger.org.springframework=INFOThis will clean up all the clutter in your log and hence improve startup performance
Try increasing the heap size for tomcat. Spring 3.0 has been known to use more memory than 2.X