Run spring boot application error: Cannot instantiate interface org.springframework.context.ApplicationListener

Question

I have a spring project and try to make it use spring boot and to run at embadded tomcat following :

https://spring.io/guides/gs/rest-service/

This is my Application

//@Configuration
//@EnableAspectJAutoProxy
@SpringBootApplication
@ComponentScan(basePackages = "gux.prome")
public class Application {

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

}

If I use maven command: mvn spring-boot:run, the project starts fine, but I need to debug , so I run this main method at InteliJ, exception occurs:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Cannot instantiate interface org.springframework.context.ApplicationListener : org.springframework.boot.logging.ClasspathLoggingApplicationListener
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.createSpringFactoriesInstances(SpringApplication.java:414)
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.getSpringFactoriesInstances(SpringApplication.java:394)
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.getSpringFactoriesInstances(SpringApplication.java:385)
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.initialize(SpringApplication.java:263)
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.<init>(SpringApplication.java:237)
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.run(SpringApplication.java:1191)
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.run(SpringApplication.java:1180)
    at gux.prome.config.Application.main(Application.java:19)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:57)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:606)
    at com.intellij.rt.execution.application.AppMain.main(AppMain.java:134)
Caused by: java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/springframework/context/event/GenericApplicationListener
....

This is the pom:

<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/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
  <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
  <groupId>gux</groupId>
  <artifactId>prome-data</artifactId>


  <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
  <name>prome-data Maven Webapp</name>
  <url>http://maven.apache.org</url>

  <parent>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
    <version>1.3.3.RELEASE</version>
  </parent>

  <dependencies>

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

    <!-- guava -->
    <dependency>
      <groupId>com.google.guava</groupId>
      <artifactId>guava</artifactId>
      <version>18.0</version>
    </dependency>
    <!-- end of guava -->


    <dependency>
      <groupId>joda-time</groupId>
      <artifactId>joda-time</artifactId>
      <version>2.9.2</version>
    </dependency>

  </dependencies>


  <properties>
    <java.version>1.7</java.version>
  </properties>


  <build>

    <finalName>prome-data</finalName>

    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
      </plugin>

      <!--<plugin>-->
      <!-- use java 7 -->
        <!--<artifactId> maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>-->
        <!--<version>3.1</version>-->
        <!--<configuration>-->
          <!--<source> 1.7</source>   -->
          <!--<target> 1.7</target>-->
        <!--</configuration>-->
      <!--</plugin>-->

    </plugins>
  </build>

  <!--<repositories>-->
    <!--<repository>-->
      <!--<id>spring-releases</id>-->
      <!--<url>http://repo.spring.io/libs-release</url>-->
    <!--</repository>-->
  <!--</repositories>-->

  <!--<pluginRepositories>-->
    <!--<pluginRepository>-->
      <!--<id>spring-releases</id>-->
      <!--<url>http://repo.spring.io/libs-release</url>-->
    <!--</pluginRepository>-->
  <!--</pluginRepositories>-->


</project>

Answer 1

This is a symptom of a version mismatch somewhere in your Spring dependencies, but not necessarily just Spring Boot and Spring itself. I had this between my Spring Boot parent:

<parent>
  <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
  <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
  <version>1.3.5.RELEASE</version>
  <relativePath></relativePath>
</parent>

and my Spring Cloud Config dependency:

<dependency>
  <groupId>org.springframework.cloud</groupId>
  <artifactId>spring-cloud-config-client</artifactId>
  <version>1.0.4.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>

For some reason, I am not able to define the spring-cloud-config-client dependency without an explicit version declaration.

Updating both to the latest release version (1.3.5.RELEASE and 1.1.1.RELEASE) solved it.

Conclusion
Update your dependencies to the latest correct ones