Put a breakpoint at WebApplication#getConfigurationType() (https://github.com/apache/wicket/blob/da9755e0985ede0e6c9415c82eca378b211fc9f5/wicket-core/src/main/java/org/apache/wicket/protocol/http/WebApplication.java#L823) and see what is going on. Or just overwrite this method to return RuntimeConfigurationType.DEPLOYMENT