Failed to start bean 'documentationPluginsBootstrapper' Spring boot Swagger implementation using Spring Fox?

Question

I am using springfox-boot-starter dependency for swagger UI in my spring boot application but when I try to run the application I am getting below error

    Failed to start bean 'documentationPluginsBootstrapper'; nested exception is java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: org.springframework.plugin.core.PluginRegistry.getPluginFor(Ljava/lang/Object;)Ljava/util/Optional;
        at org.springframework.context.support.DefaultLifecycleProcessor.doStart(DefaultLifecycleProcessor.java:184)
        at org.springframework.context.support.DefaultLifecycleProcessor.access$200(DefaultLifecycleProcessor.java:52)
        at org.springframework.context.support.DefaultLifecycleProcessor$LifecycleGroup.start(DefaultLifecycleProcessor.java:356)
        at org.springframework.context.support.DefaultLifecycleProcessor.startBeans(DefaultLifecycleProcessor.java:157)
        at org.springframework.context.support.DefaultLifecycleProcessor.onRefresh(DefaultLifecycleProcessor.java:121)
        at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.finishRefresh(AbstractApplicationContext.java:885)
        at org.springframework.boot.web.servlet.context.ServletWebServerApplicationContext.finishRefresh(ServletWebServerApplicationContext.java:161)
        at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.refresh(AbstractApplicationContext.java:553)
        at org.springframework.boot.web.servlet.context.ServletWebServerApplicationContext.refresh(ServletWebServerApplicationContext.java:140)
        at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.refresh(SpringApplication.java:759)

my config file:

 @Bean
 public Docket productApi() {
        
     return new Docket(DocumentationType.SWAGGER_2)
        .select()
        .apis(RequestHandlerSelectors.basePackage("com.swagger.demo.controller"))
        .paths(regex("/student.*"))
        .build()
        .enableUrlTemplating(true)
        .produces(DEFAULT_PRODUCES_AND_CONSUMES)
        .consumes(DEFAULT_PRODUCES_AND_CONSUMES)
        .apiInfo(apiEndPointsInfo());
    }

private ApiInfo apiEndPointsInfo() {

    return new ApiInfoBuilder()
            .title("demo")
            .description("demo")
            .version("1.0")
            .build();
} 

Below is the dependency which I am using. pom.xml file:

<parent>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
    <version>2.0.3.RELEASE</version>
    <relativePath/> <!-- lookup parent from repository -->
</parent>
    
<dependencies>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>io.springfox</groupId>
      <artifactId>springfox-boot-starter</artifactId>
      <version>3.0.0</version>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

Why I am getting above error I don't get anything. Any help would be highly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

I had a similar issue and found the solution here. Basically you have to include in the file application.properties the following configuration:

spring.mvc.pathmatch.matching-strategy=ant-path-matcher

As it seems Spring Boot 2+ set as default the PathPathern-based matcher, while Spring Fox expects the Ant-based matcher. The problem with this solution is that you cannot use Spring Actuator, since it uses PathPattern based URL matching. In this case, check this Spring Fox issue.