Spring boot with external jar 'Not a Managed Type'

Question

I have a spring application that is pulling in a commons jar. This jar has DTO classes with annotations. Running the mvn clean build command runs successfully and builds the jar. Once i run java -jar target/MyApp-1.0.0.BUILD-SNAPSHOT.jar i will get the below error.

I have opend the MyApp-1.0.0.BUILD-SNAPSHOT.jar and found all my classes inside that jar.

I have opened the jar that contains MyApplicationJobDTO inside my snapshot and verified the file is there.

It seems that at runtime java cannot find the class even though the class is there. I dont believe i should have to add anything to java class path since the jar is located inside of the snapshot jar. I am stuck and unsure of why i am getting runtime errors.

Caused by: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Not an managed type: class com...MyApplicationJobDTO

Class with its annotations

@Component
@Entity
public class MyApplicationJobDTO implements Serializable {

My command to run

mvn clean package && java -jar target/MyApp-1.0.0.BUILD-SNAPSHOT.jar 

My Main class

@EnableJpaRepositories
@ComponentScan
@EntityScan
@Configuration
@EnableAutoConfiguration
public class Application {
    public static void main(String[] args) {

        ApplicationContext context = 
                new ClassPathXmlApplicationContext("file:src/main/java/com/myapp/beans.xml");

        SpringApplication.run(Application.class, args);
    }
}

Beans.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<beans xmlns="http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans"
    xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
    xmlns:context="http://www.springframework.org/schema/context"
    xsi:schemaLocation="
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/beans/spring-beans-2.5.xsd
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/aop/spring-aop-2.5.xsd
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/tx/spring-tx-2.5.xsd
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/context
    http://www.springframework.org/schema/context/spring-context.xsd">

</beans>

Error

org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'MyApplicationJobController': Injection of autowired dependencies failed; nested exception is org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Could not autowire field: com.myapp.xx.yy.models.MyApplicationJobDAO com.myapp.xx.yy.web.MyApplicationJobController.MyApplicationJobDAO; nested exception is org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'MyApplicationJobDAO': Invocation of init method failed; nested exception is java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Not an managed type: class com.myapp.aa.bb.myapptest.commons.dto.MyApplicationJobDTO
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.AutowiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor.postProcessPropertyValues(AutowiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor.java:293)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.populateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1186)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:537)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:475)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory$1.getObject(AbstractBeanFactory.java:302)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.getSingleton(DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.java:228)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.doGetBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:298)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.getBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:193)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory.preInstantiateSingletons(DefaultListableBeanFactory.java:706)
    at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.finishBeanFactoryInitialization(AbstractApplicationContext.java:762)
    at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.refresh(AbstractApplicationContext.java:482)
    at org.springframework.boot.context.embedded.EmbeddedWebApplicationContext.refresh(EmbeddedWebApplicationContext.java:109)
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.refresh(SpringApplication.java:691)
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.run(SpringApplication.java:320)
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.run(SpringApplication.java:952)
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.run(SpringApplication.java:941)
    at com.myapp.xx.yy.Application.main(Application.java:24)
    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:498)
    at org.springframework.boot.loader.MainMethodRunner.run(MainMethodRunner.java:53)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)
Caused by: org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Could not autowire field: com.myapp.xx.yy.models.MyApplicationJobDAO com.myapp.xx.yy.web.MyApplicationJobController.MyApplicationJobDAO; nested exception is org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'MyApplicationJobDAO': Invocation of init method failed; nested exception is java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Not an managed type: class com.myapp.aa.bb.myapptest.commons.dto.MyApplicationJobDTO
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.AutowiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor$AutowiredFieldElement.inject(AutowiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor.java:509)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.InjectionMetadata.inject(InjectionMetadata.java:87)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.AutowiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor.postProcessPropertyValues(AutowiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor.java:290)
    ... 22 common frames omitted
Caused by: org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'MyApplicationJobDAO': Invocation of init method failed; nested exception is java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Not an managed type: class com.myapp.aa.bb.myapptest.commons.dto.MyApplicationJobDTO
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.initializeBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1554)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:539)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:475)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory$1.getObject(AbstractBeanFactory.java:302)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.getSingleton(DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.java:228)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.doGetBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:298)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.getBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:193)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory.findAutowireCandidates(DefaultListableBeanFactory.java:1021)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory.doResolveDependency(DefaultListableBeanFactory.java:964)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory.resolveDependency(DefaultListableBeanFactory.java:862)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.AutowiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor$AutowiredFieldElement.inject(AutowiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor.java:481)
    ... 24 common frames omitted
Caused by: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Not an managed type: class com.myapp.aa.bb.myapptest.commons.dto.MyApplicationJobDTO
    at org.hibernate.jpa.internal.metamodel.MetamodelImpl.managedType(MetamodelImpl.java:219)
    at org.springframework.data.jpa.repository.support.JpaMetamodelEntityInformation.<init>(JpaMetamodelEntityInformation.java:68)
    at org.springframework.data.jpa.repository.support.JpaEntityInformationSupport.getMetadata(JpaEntityInformationSupport.java:65)
    at org.springframework.data.jpa.repository.support.JpaRepositoryFactory.getEntityInformation(JpaRepositoryFactory.java:149)
    at org.springframework.data.jpa.repository.support.JpaRepositoryFactory.getTargetRepository(JpaRepositoryFactory.java:88)
    at org.springframework.data.jpa.repository.support.JpaRepositoryFactory.getTargetRepository(JpaRepositoryFactory.java:68)
    at org.springframework.data.repository.core.support.RepositoryFactorySupport.getRepository(RepositoryFactorySupport.java:158)
    at org.springframework.data.repository.core.support.RepositoryFactoryBeanSupport.initAndReturn(RepositoryFactoryBeanSupport.java:224)
    at org.springframework.data.repository.core.support.RepositoryFactoryBeanSupport.afterPropertiesSet(RepositoryFactoryBeanSupport.java:210)
    at org.springframework.data.jpa.repository.support.JpaRepositoryFactoryBean.afterPropertiesSet(JpaRepositoryFactoryBean.java:92)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.invokeInitMethods(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1613)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.initializeBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1550)

edit If i manually add all the classes in my external jar that need to be used in my spring project it works. I still cannot get the classes to load from an external jar

Answer 1

I gave the same answer here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/41145229/372838 but this question states more clearly the problem only occurs when running the spring boot application as a JAR

---

In my project we experienced a similar problem. When running with mvn spring-boot:start the @EntityScan works fine and can find all entities including those in libraries. When we run the springboot application using java -jar the application cannot find entities that are referenced via a maven dependency. It seems the classloading is different when the springboot application is run as a jar.

You can instruct spring-boot to 'unpack' the JAR dependency that contains the entities that can not be found. You can add the following section to your pom.xml:

<project>
  ...

  <build>
      <plugins>
          <plugin>
              <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
              <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
              <configuration>
                  <requiresUnpack>
                      <dependency>
                          <groupId>org.example.pkg.commons</groupId>
                          <artifactId>domain-jar</artifactId>
                      </dependency>
                  </requiresUnpack>
              </configuration>
          </plugin>
      </plugins>
  </build>

</project>