Error starting Tomcat from NetBeans - '127.0.0.1*' is not recognized as an internal or external command

Assuming you are on Windows (this bug is caused by the crappy bat files escaping), It is a bug introduced in the latest versions (7.0.56 and 8.0.14) to workaround another bug. Try to remove the " around the JAVA_OPTS declaration in catalina.bat. It fixed it for me with Tomcat 7.0.56 yesterday.

In 7.0.56 in bin/catalina.bat:179 and 184

:noJuliConfig
set "JAVA_OPTS=%JAVA_OPTS% %LOGGING_CONFIG%"

..

:noJuliManager
set "JAVA_OPTS=%JAVA_OPTS% %LOGGING_MANAGER%"

to

:noJuliConfig
set JAVA_OPTS=%JAVA_OPTS% %LOGGING_CONFIG%

.. 

:noJuliManager
set JAVA_OPTS=%JAVA_OPTS% %LOGGING_MANAGER%

For your asterisk, it might only be a configuration of yours somewhere that appends it to the host declaration.

I saw this on Tomcat's bugtracker yesterday but I can't find the link again. Edit Found it! https://issues.apache.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=56895

I hope it fixes your problem.

After following the steps from @Johnride, I still got the same error.

This fixed the problem:

Tools-> Options-> Select no proxy

source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uI1j-8F8eN4

Tools-> Options-> Select no proxy is worked for me