diff --git a/main/src/com/google/refine/RefineServlet.java b/main/src/com/google/refine/RefineServlet.java
index 93018457c..27d16cd3b 100644
--- a/main/src/com/google/refine/RefineServlet.java
+++ b/main/src/com/google/refine/RefineServlet.java
@@ -112,9 +112,9 @@ public class RefineServlet extends Butterfly {
         }
         if (REVISION.equals("$REVISION")) {
             ClassLoader classLoader = getClass().getClassLoader();
-            InputStream gitStats = classLoader.getResourceAsStream("git.properties");
-            ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
             try {
+                InputStream gitStats = classLoader.getResourceAsStream("git.properties");
+                ObjectMapper mapper = new ObjectMapper();
                 ObjectNode parsedGit = mapper.readValue(gitStats, ObjectNode.class);
                 REVISION = parsedGit.get("git.commit.id.abbrev").asText("TRUNK");
             } catch (IOException e) {
diff --git a/packaging/pom.xml b/packaging/pom.xml
index 33c2d7348..83cd44710 100644
--- a/packaging/pom.xml
+++ b/packaging/pom.xml
@@ -46,6 +46,11 @@
                             <exclude name="WEB-INF/lib/icu4j*.jar"/>
                         </fileset>
                     </copy>
+                    <copy todir="${built.webapp.dir}">
+                        <fileset dir="${webapp.dir}">
+                            <include name="**/*.properties"/>
+                        </fileset>
+                    </copy>
                     <copy todir="${built.webapp.dir}/WEB-INF/lib/">
                         <fileset dir="${webapp.target}">
                             <include name="openrefine-main.jar" />