java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/springframework/core/env/ConfigurableEnvironment

Question

I am trying to write a simple RESTful service using Spring Boot. However, there is an error message I am not able to solve. I have been researching and it looks like it is a conflict between SpringBoot versions, however I am not sure about how can I get rid of it.

I have this SpringBootApp:

import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;

/**
 * REST Service application
 */
@SpringBootApplication
public class Application {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(Application.class, args);
    }
}

Associated with this pom.xml:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<project
    xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd"
    xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">

    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    <groupId>com.websystique.springmvc</groupId>
    <artifactId>Spring4MVCHelloWorldRestServiceDemo</artifactId>
    <packaging>war</packaging>
    <version>1.0.0</version>
    <name>Spring4MVCHelloWorldRestServiceDemo Maven Webapp</name>

    <properties>
        <springframework.version>4.3.0.RELEASE</springframework.version>
        <jackson.library>2.7.5</jackson.library>
        <spring.batch.version>2.1.9.RELEASE</spring.batch.version>
    </properties>

    <dependencies>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
            <version>1.4.0.RELEASE</version>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-core</artifactId>
            <version>${springframework.version}</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-web</artifactId>
            <version>${springframework.version}</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-webmvc</artifactId>
            <version>${springframework.version}</version>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>junit</groupId>
            <artifactId>junit</artifactId>
            <version>4.11</version> <!-- Or whatever JUnit you're using. -->
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
            <artifactId>javax.servlet-api</artifactId>
            <version>3.1.0</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.core</groupId>
            <artifactId>jackson-databind</artifactId>
            <version>${jackson.library}</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.dataformat</groupId>
            <artifactId>jackson-dataformat-xml</artifactId>
            <version>${jackson.library}</version>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.batch</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-batch-core</artifactId>
            <version>${spring.batch.version}</version>
            <exclusions>
                <exclusion>
                    <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
                    <artifactId>spring-beans</artifactId>
                </exclusion>
                <exclusion>
                    <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
                    <artifactId>spring-core</artifactId>
                </exclusion>
            </exclusions>
        </dependency>


    </dependencies>


    <build>
        <pluginManagement>
            <plugins>
                <plugin>
                    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                    <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
                    <version>3.2</version>
                    <configuration>
                        <source>1.7</source>
                        <target>1.7</target>
                    </configuration>
                </plugin>
                <plugin>
                    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                    <artifactId>maven-war-plugin</artifactId>
                    <version>2.4</version>
                    <configuration>
                        <warSourceDirectory>src/main/webapp</warSourceDirectory>
                        <warName>Spring4MVCHelloWorldRestServiceDemo</warName>
                        <failOnMissingWebXml>false</failOnMissingWebXml>
                    </configuration>
                </plugin>
            </plugins>
        </pluginManagement>

        <finalName>Spring4MVCHelloWorldRestServiceDemo</finalName>
    </build>
</project>

Looks fine for me, but I am getting this error:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/springframework/core/env/ConfigurableEnvironment
    at com.application.Application.main(Application.java:13)
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.springframework.core.env.ConfigurableEnvironment
    at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:381)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:424)
    at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Launcher.java:331)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:357)
    ... 1 more

Answer 1

Recommended Approach

1. Go to Spring boot Initialzr site and select web stack as a dependency as shown in below .
2. As Spring Boot uses the concept of Opinionated dependencies and Bill of Materials, It will automatically pull the other dependencies and resolve your classNotFoundException issue. And in your case it misses out the Spring-core-4.2.4.RELEASE.jar dependency.

3. Execute the Maven Goal as clean install spring-boot:run -e and you can find your maven dependencies in your IDE and below given is a sample POM file.

     <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
    <project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"              xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
     xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0     http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
       <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
   
      <groupId>com.example</groupId>
     <artifactId>demo</artifactId>
    <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <packaging>war</packaging>
   
        <name>demo</name>
       <description>Demo project for Spring Boot</description>
   
        <parent>
          <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
         <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
        <version>1.4.0.RELEASE</version>
        <relativePath/> <!-- lookup parent from repository -->
      </parent>
   
       <properties>
         <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
          <project.reporting.outputEncoding>UTF-       8</project.reporting.outputEncoding>
       <java.version>1.8</java.version>
       </properties>
   
    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
          <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
           <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
        </dependency>
   
        <dependency>
             <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
               <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-tomcat</artifactId>
                <scope>provided</scope>
         </dependency>
       <dependency>
       <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
       <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-actuator</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
           <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
           <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
           <scope>test</scope>
         < /dependency>
       </dependencies>
   
     <build>
       <finalName>demo</finalName>
          <plugins>
            <plugin>
               <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
               <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            </plugin>
         </plugins>
       </build>