make sure you have an as7 running in standalone mode copy an artifact in exploded manner to the deployment folder (ex. bogus.war - deployed as a folder) make sure it's started by checking if there's a .deployed (ex. bogus.war.deployed) marker change the web.xml to something invalid (I added an "!" to the closing tag of <display-name> trigger it's restart by creating a .dodeploy marker (ex. bogus.war.dodeploy) Accessing your app by browser ( http://localhost:8080/bogus ) shows you that the deployment was stopped. Result: You still have a .deployed marker in the deployment folder. (the .dodeploy marker was removed by the scanner) In the upcoming steps things get even more weird: change the web.xml to something valid again trigger its redeployment by creating a .dodeploy marker make sure you can access your app by browser Result: The deployment folder now has a .failed marker even though the deployment seems to be running.