local_host error-HELP

Environment-
jdk1.3.1
jakarta-tomcat-4.0.6
mysql
I am able to get to the index page through the browser, but the catalina batch file shuts down automatically when I click on a link in the application.
Error log for localhost
2004-03-19 00:02:10 StandardManager IOException while loading persisted sessions: java.io.StreamCorruptedException: Caught EOFException while reading the stream header
java.io.StreamCorruptedException: Caught EOFException while reading the stream header
at java.io.ObjectInputStream.readStreamHeader(ObjectInputStream.java:845)
at java.io.ObjectInputStream.<init>(ObjectInputStream.java:168)
at org.apache.catalina.util.CustomObjectInputStream.<init>(CustomObjectInputStream.java:103)
at org.apache.catalina.session.StandardManager.load(StandardManager.java:379)
at org.apache.catalina.session.StandardManager.start(StandardManager.java:617)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.start(ContainerBase.java:1104)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.start(StandardContext.java:3371)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChild(ContainerBase.java:785)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.addChild(StandardHost.java:478)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.install(StandardHost.java:738)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployApps(HostConfig.java:300)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.start(HostConfig.java:389)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.lifecycleEvent(HostConfig.java:232)
at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleSupport.fireLifecycleEvent(LifecycleSupport.java:155)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.start(ContainerBase.java:1131)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.start(StandardHost.java:638)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.start(ContainerBase.java:1123)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngine.start(StandardEngine.java:343)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardService.start(StandardService.java:388)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardServer.start(StandardServer.java:506)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.start(Catalina.java:781)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.execute(Catalina.java:681)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.process(Catalina.java:179)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Native Method)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.main(Bootstrap.java:243)

It appears that your Tomcat is configured to use persistent sessions and that an attempt to reload one is crashing the system. Now, I have not used persisent sessions, but if this was my problem I would comment out the section of your server.xml that decares persistent sessions to be in use. In my server.xml this is a section that looks like:
<Manager className="org.apache.catalina.session.PersistentManager"
debug="0"
saveOnRestart="true"
maxActiveSessions="-1"
minIdleSwap="-1"
maxIdleSwap="-1"
maxIdleBackup="-1">
<Store className="org.apache.catalina.session.FileStore"/>
</Manager>
-----------
Hopefully, if it does not see that configuration, it won't try to reload the session.
Bill

the other thing you could do is clean out the SESSIONS.ser file in your work directories. That's the persisted session file (the one that is apparently corrupt).
[ March 19, 2004: Message edited by: Mike Curwen ]

Thanks, but, no. These sggestions did not help.
From a big picture perspective, I am able to perform "catalina start" and open the index page of my application using the browser.
But the apache program shuts down automatically when I click on a functional link in the index page.
Could someone explain why it shuts down automatically?