Setting up a Spring MVC Maven "Hello World" webapp in Intellij

I am trying to set up a spring webapp in Intellij. I am using Maven to manage dependencies and a local Tomcat webserver. So far I have created the project using the Spring MVC template.

I am basically following this tutorial, but with Intellij 13.1.6 and using the Spring MVC template: http://alfasin.com/setting-up-spring-web-project-on-intellij-using-maven/

I would assume that this would allow me to get a "Hello World" app up and running quickly. However, I am getting 500 internal errors that I am having trouble solving.

When I try to run the app I usually get this error:

Seemingly randomly, I will sometimes get this error instead:

This is my web.xml file:

<web-app version="2.4"
xmlns="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee 
http://java.sun.com/xml/ns/j2ee/web-app_2_4.xsd">

<display-name>Spring MVC Application</display-name>

<servlet>
    <servlet-name>mvc-dispatcher</servlet-name>
    <servlet-class>org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet</servlet-class>
    <load-on-startup>1</load-on-startup>
</servlet>

<servlet-mapping>
    <servlet-name>mvc-dispatcher</servlet-name>
    <url-pattern>/</url-pattern>
</servlet-mapping>

This is my mvc-dispatcher-servlet.xml file:

<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"
   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">

<context:component-scan base-package="com.maynard.pipes"/>

<bean class="org.springframework.web.servlet.view.InternalResourceViewResolver">
    <property name="prefix" value="/WEB-INF/pages/"/>
    <property name="suffix" value=".jsp"/>
</bean>

This is my controller:

package com.maynard.pipes;

import org.springframework.stereotype.Controller;
import org.springframework.ui.ModelMap;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMapping;
import org.springframework.web.bind.annotation.RequestMethod;

@Controller
@RequestMapping("/")
public class HelloController 
{   
    @RequestMapping(method = RequestMethod.GET)
    public String printWelcome(ModelMap model)
    {
        model.addAttribute("message", "Hello world!");
        return "hello";
    }
}

This is my pom.xml file:

<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/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
<groupId>com.springapp</groupId>
<artifactId>project-pipes</artifactId>
<packaging>war</packaging>
<version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
<name>project-pipes</name>

<properties>
    <spring.version>3.2.0.RELEASE</spring.version>
</properties>

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-core</artifactId>
        <version>${spring.version}</version>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-web</artifactId>
        <version>${spring.version}</version>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
        <artifactId>servlet-api</artifactId>
        <version>2.5</version>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.servlet.jsp</groupId>
        <artifactId>jsp-api</artifactId>
        <version>2.1</version>
        <scope>provided</scope>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-webmvc</artifactId>
        <version>${spring.version}</version>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-test</artifactId>
        <version>${spring.version}</version>
        <scope>test</scope>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
        <groupId>junit</groupId>
        <artifactId>junit</artifactId>
        <version>4.8.2</version>
        <scope>test</scope>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

<build>
    <finalName>project-pipes</finalName>
    <plugins>
        <plugin>
            <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
            <configuration>
                <source>1.6</source>
                <target>1.6</target>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>
        <plugin>
            <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
            <configuration>
                <includes>
                    <include>**/*Tests.java</include>
                </includes>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>
    </plugins>
</build>

This is my Tomcat configuration:

If anyone can point out what I've gotten wrong I would appreciate it. I still have much to learn on the configuration side of development. Thanks.

The JSP version you using is not compatible with the Tomcat 8 version. Check this out: http://tomcat.apache.org/whichversion.html