ClassNotFoundException when using external jar

Question

I'm using IntelliJ Idea. I've built my application and created it as a .jar file. This program uses an external .jar file for its database driver.

When I run the program from the IDE, it works fine. When I try to run my .jar file outside of the IDE, it reports the following exception:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: com/microsoft/sqlserver/jdbc/SQLServerException
        at ca.vdts.dbupdate.Main.main(Main.java:10)
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerException
        at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(Unknown Source)
        at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(Unknown Source)
        at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
        at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(Unknown Source)
        at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
        at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
        at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)

The directory of the sqljdbc42.jar file is in the manifest. I'm on Windows, and I'd like to run this by clicking on the '.jar' file. The application .jar file and the sqljdbc42.jar files are both in the same directory. On the command line, executing...

C:\Users\admin\IdeaProjects\DBUpdate\out\artifacts\DBUpdate>java -classpath .\sqljdbc42.jar;DBUpdate.jar -jar DBUpdate.jar

... results in the same error:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: com/microsoft/sqlserver/jdbc/SQLServerException
        at ca.vdts.dbupdate.Main.main(Main.java:10)
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: com.microsoft.sqlserver.jdbc.SQLServerException
        at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(Unknown Source)
        at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(Unknown Source)
        at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
        at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(Unknown Source)
        at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
        at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
        at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(Unknown Source)
        ... 1 more

Answer 1

Try running your application with:

java -classpath sqljdbc42.jar:Application.jar -jar Application.jar

Replace the : with a ; under Windows.