java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: Could not initialize class oracle.apps.fnd.profiles.Profiles

Problem:
While trying to login to Oracle Application front-end for one of EBS test environment we started getting below JSP error:

Request URI:/OA_HTML/AppsLocalLogin.jsp

Exception:

java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: Could not initialize class oracle.apps.fnd.profiles.Profiles

To fix the issue, I did the following steps :

•    Stop Apache (./adapcctl.sh stop)
•    Clear the Server cache

                    I.     cd $COMMON_TOP
                   II.     mv _pages _pages_27Feb
                   III.    mkdir _pages 

•   Start the apache (./adapcctl.sh start)   

Now after bouncing Apache, when I look at the status of apache:
/adapcctl.sh status
adapcctl.sh version 115.54
Apache Web Server Listener is not running.
Apache Web Server Listener (PLSQL) :httpd ( pid 8519 ) is running.
adapcctl.sh: exiting with status 0

It shows apache listener is not running and the apache log file confirmed the same thing.

tail -f $COMMON_TOP/admin/log/adapcctl.txt
ISSUE : Apache listener not running
=============================================

Sometimes there is a problem in Apache Server where although the status shown is not running, I checked for any orphan Apache / Jserv processes and found few httpd processes still running even after stopping Apache.

$ ./adapcctl.sh stop
adapcctl.sh version 115.55
Apache Web Server Listener is not running.
Apache Web Server Listener (PLSQL) is not running.
adapcctl.sh: exiting with status 0

$ ps -ef | grep Apache | wc -l
27

$ kill -9 `ps -ef | grep Apache | grep applprod | grep -v grep | awk '{print $2}'`

$ ps -ef | grep Apache | wc -l
1

$ ./adapcctl.sh start
adapcctl.sh version 115.55
Apache Web Server Listener is not running.
Starting Apache Web Server Listener (dedicated HTTP in SSL mode) ...
Apache Web Server Listener (PLSQL) is not running.
Starting Apache Web Server Listener (dedicated PLSQL) ...
adapcctl.sh: exiting with status 0

Now, when I was able to get the login screen for Oracle Applications and JSP error issue got resolved.

References:
Could not initialize class oracle.apps.fnd.profiles.Profiles (Doc ID 461872.1)
Child 25494 returned a Fatal error...Apache is exiting! (Doc ID 163458.1)
11i: Apache server will not start. adapcctl.sh runs w/o error but nothing starts [ID 115914.1]
11i: adapcctl.sh will not start up Apache processes. No error given [ID 114919.1]