Problem deploying exploded artifact for remote Tomcat from IntelliJ Idea

I am trying to deploy an exploded web application to start Tomcat 7.0.47 server. Once deployed, Idea outputs this:

Webapp artifact: error deploying artifact. See server log for details.

When I checked the server logs I came across an exception:

Sep 30, 2014 12:41:28 PM org.apache.tomcat.util.modeler.BaseModelMBean invoke
SEVERE: Exception invoking method createStandardContext
java.lang.NullPointerException
    at org.apache.catalina.mbeans.MBeanFactory.createStandardContext(MBeanFactory.java:635)
    at org.apache.catalina.mbeans.MBeanFactory.createStandardContext(MBeanFactory.java:567)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Unknown Source)
    at org.apache.tomcat.util.modeler.BaseModelMBean.invoke(BaseModelMBean.java:301)
    at com.sun.jmx.interceptor.DefaultMBeanServerInterceptor.invoke(Unknown Source)
    at com.sun.jmx.mbeanserver.JmxMBeanServer.invoke(Unknown Source)
    at javax.management.remote.rmi.RMIConnectionImpl.doOperation(Unknown Source)
    at javax.management.remote.rmi.RMIConnectionImpl.access$300(Unknown Source)
    at javax.management.remote.rmi.RMIConnectionImpl$PrivilegedOperation.run(Unknown Source)
    at javax.management.remote.rmi.RMIConnectionImpl.doPrivilegedOperation(Unknown Source)
    at javax.management.remote.rmi.RMIConnectionImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(Unknown Source)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Unknown Source)
    at sun.rmi.server.UnicastServerRef.dispatch(Unknown Source)
    at sun.rmi.transport.Transport$1.run(Unknown Source)
    at sun.rmi.transport.Transport$1.run(Unknown Source)
    at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
    at sun.rmi.transport.Transport.serviceCall(Unknown Source)
    at sun.rmi.transport.tcp.TCPTransport.handleMessages(Unknown Source)
    at sun.rmi.transport.tcp.TCPTransport$ConnectionHandler.run0(Unknown Source)
    at sun.rmi.transport.tcp.TCPTransport$ConnectionHandler.run(Unknown Source)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(Unknown Source)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(Unknown Source)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

      

        
        
        
      

    

Env .: Idea 13 on OSX, Tomcat on Windows using JMX to deploy to remote server