ClassCastException while parsing XML with WebLogic

Question

I'm getting the following error message:

java.lang.ClassCastException: weblogic.xml.jaxp.RegistryDocumentBuilderFactory cannot be cast to javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory

I've gone through some forums researching this. They said to remove xml-apis.jar or that JAR files were conflicting. But even though I did all the suggested steps, I'm getting the same error.

Answer 1

It's always the xml-apis.jar. Remove them from your classpath (e.g. remove them from WEB-INF/lib of your webapp).

Answer 2

Remove xml-beans-1.xb2 to the lib directory. Modified the POM so it does not include that jar file with the following:

<dependency>
    <groupId>xml-apis</groupId>
    <artifactId>xml-apis</artifactId>
    <version>1.0.b2</version>
    <scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>

Answer 3

I think Banang is right. Forum http://forum.springsource.org/showthread.php?t=22597 describes solution for similar problem.

Typically such problems happen when there are several versions of the same class in class path while those versions are loaded by different class loaders. One version of DocumentBuilderFactory was loaded by system class loader, other by class loader of your enterprise application. When you are calling the XML parser the parent's version of the class is used. When you are casting yours private version is utilized. These versions are incompatible that causes ClassCastException.

Answer 4

The reason for this issue is you are having multiple jars with same class name in library. Go to WEB-INF/lib and remove xml-apis-1.0.b2.jar and stax-api-1.0.1.jar or remove them from you pom.xml itself and you would be good to go.

Answer 5

I wanted make a slight addition to the previous answers to this question, in the event that anyone else is in the same situation I was. I had the same problem on our WebLogic 9.2 server due to my use of CXF 2.2.3. In addition to the removal of the xml-apis.jar mentioned previously, I also had to remove a xmlParserAPIs library.

As I am using Maven2 it was just a simple matter of adding another inclusion.

    <!-- CXF -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.apache.cxf</groupId>
        <artifactId>cxf-bundle</artifactId>
        <version>${dependency.version.cxf}</version>
        <scope>compile</scope>
        <exclusions>
            <exclusion>
                <artifactId>xml-apis</artifactId>
                <groupId>xml-apis</groupId>
            </exclusion>
            <exclusion>
                <artifactId>xercesImpl</artifactId>
                <groupId>xerces</groupId>
            </exclusion>
            <exclusion>
                <artifactId>xmlbeans</artifactId>
                <groupId>org.apache.xmlbeans</groupId>
            </exclusion>
            <exclusion>
                <artifactId>xmlParserAPIs</artifactId>
                <groupId>xerces</groupId>
            </exclusion>
        </exclusions>
    </dependency>

Hope this helps someone!