just upgraded to 9 now getting org.apache.tomcat.dbcp.dbcp.SQLNestedException: Cannot create JDBC driver of class '' for connect URL 'null'

hello,
when my app starts and i try to connect to the DB i get
org.apache.tomcat.dbcp.dbcp.SQLNestedException: Cannot create JDBC driver of class '' for connect URL 'null'

I am using tomcat
i have the mysql jar in by WEB-INF/libs dir
i have the jar in the tomcat/common/lib dir

In the deyployment i have
J:\Mydir\webapp\META-INF\context.xml

thanks for any help in direction