spring-boot-devtools doesn't reload dependent modules in multi-module maven project

Question

Before I start, I'd like to say that I already tried the solution proposed in spring-boot-devtools reload of multi-module maven project changes, which didn't work for me.

Problem:

I have a multi-module Spring Boot project of this sort:

The module launcher has a Maven dependency on module GUI. I launch my Spring Boot application from the main method in launcher.

When I run the application and change any HTML file in GUI module, the spring-boot-devtools dependency doesn't do a live reload of these changes for my running application. Not even manual restart of launcher helps. I need to compile GUI manually and then run launcher again.

What I tried:

1. I tried defining the spring-boot-devtools dependency first in parent pom.xml, then in GUI module only and then in both at the same time.
2. I tried adding spring.devtools.restart.additional-paths=../gui in my application.properties file as suggested in spring-boot-devtools reload of multi-module maven project changes. This does indeed trigger the reload (according to the log), but those changes just don't propagate to the jar file of GUI dependency. Also, before I even made this project into multi-module, there was no need for reloading just because of HTML files (nothing is being compiled) and I could see the changes right away.

I use Netbeans GUI if that's of any help. I also tried running the project from command line, with no success. The Maven packaging on all modules is set to jar.

Answer 1

The fact that this works when you configure absolute paths in devtools tells me that this is mainly a work directory issue.

So this means that:

• configured paths should be relative to where you launch the CLI
• you should configure the same location as a work directory in the run configuration of your IDE (whatever configuration your IDE is using to launch your application should have such an option)

In your case: everything should be relative to your launcher module; this should be as well your work directory in your IDE.