Running Spring Boot within IntelliJ results in Unable to load 'javax.el.ExpressionFactory'

Question

I am trying to run a simple Spring Boot application that has the following Maven pom.file:

<properties>
    <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
    <start-class>com.ptkonline.EwsdProxyApplication</start-class>
    <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-test</artifactId>
        <scope>test</scope>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

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

If I package the file using Maven, and run the application through java -jar application.jar, the application starts up normally. However, if I run it from IntelliJ by executing the main class, the startup fails with the following error:

2014-12-25 22:18:55.831 ERROR 3388 --- [           main] o.s.boot.SpringApplication               : Application startup failed

org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'org.springframework.boot.context.properties.ConfigurationPropertiesBindingPostProcessor': Invocation of init method failed; nested exception is javax.validation.ValidationException: Unable to instantiate Configuration.
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.initializeBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1566)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:539)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:476)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory$1.getObject(AbstractBeanFactory.java:302)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.getSingleton(DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.java:230)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.doGetBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:298)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.getBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:198)
    at org.springframework.context.support.PostProcessorRegistrationDelegate.registerBeanPostProcessors(PostProcessorRegistrationDelegate.java:199)
    at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.registerBeanPostProcessors(AbstractApplicationContext.java:615)
    at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.refresh(AbstractApplicationContext.java:465)
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.refresh(SpringApplication.java:691)
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.run(SpringApplication.java:321)
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.run(SpringApplication.java:961)
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.run(SpringApplication.java:950)
    at com.ptkonline.EwsdProxyApplication.main(EwsdProxyApplication.java:13)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:483)
    at com.intellij.rt.execution.application.AppMain.main(AppMain.java:134)
Caused by: javax.validation.ValidationException: Unable to instantiate Configuration.
    at javax.validation.Validation$GenericBootstrapImpl.configure(Validation.java:279)
    at org.springframework.validation.beanvalidation.LocalValidatorFactoryBean.afterPropertiesSet(LocalValidatorFactoryBean.java:223)
    at org.springframework.boot.context.properties.ConfigurationPropertiesBindingPostProcessor$Jsr303ValidatorFactory.run(ConfigurationPropertiesBindingPostProcessor.java:361)
    at org.springframework.boot.context.properties.ConfigurationPropertiesBindingPostProcessor.afterPropertiesSet(ConfigurationPropertiesBindingPostProcessor.java:174)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.invokeInitMethods(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1625)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.initializeBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1562)
    ... 19 common frames omitted
Caused by: javax.validation.ValidationException: HV000183: Unable to load 'javax.el.ExpressionFactory'. Check that you have the EL dependencies on the classpath
    at org.hibernate.validator.messageinterpolation.ResourceBundleMessageInterpolator.<init>(ResourceBundleMessageInterpolator.java:172)
    at org.hibernate.validator.messageinterpolation.ResourceBundleMessageInterpolator.<init>(ResourceBundleMessageInterpolator.java:118)
    at org.hibernate.validator.internal.engine.ConfigurationImpl.<init>(ConfigurationImpl.java:110)
    at org.hibernate.validator.internal.engine.ConfigurationImpl.<init>(ConfigurationImpl.java:86)
    at org.hibernate.validator.HibernateValidator.createGenericConfiguration(HibernateValidator.java:41)
    at javax.validation.Validation$GenericBootstrapImpl.configure(Validation.java:276)
    ... 24 common frames omitted

Has anyone been able to run a Spring Boot application directly from IntelliJ?

Answer 1

I had a similar problem when creating a WAR file using the Spring Initializr with Intellij, and by adding the following dependency the application executed without any errors, thank you:

    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.el</groupId>
        <artifactId>javax.el-api</artifactId>
        <version>2.2.4</version>
    </dependency>

Answer 2

The problem is probably that the EL implementation is in the Tomcat starter that you marked as "provided". If it isn't provided (which it won't be for a JAR file) maybe you should just leave it out?