[java] java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication Maven

I'm trying to create a spring mvc application. This is my pom.xml

<?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/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    <groupId>com.acme</groupId>
    <artifactId>test</artifactId>
    <name>springmvc</name>
    <packaging>jar</packaging>
    <version>1.0.0-BUILD-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <properties>
        <org.springframework-version>3.1.1.RELEASE</org.springframework-version>
        <org.aspectj-version>1.6.10</org.aspectj-version>
        <org.slf4j-version>1.6.6</org.slf4j-version>
    </properties>

    <repositories>
        <repository>
            <id>spring-milestone</id>
            <url>http://repo.spring.io/libs-milestone</url>
            <snapshots>
                <enabled>false</enabled>
            </snapshots>
        </repository>
    </repositories>

    <pluginRepositories>
        <pluginRepository>
            <id>spring-milestone</id>
            <url>http://repo.spring.io/libs-milestone</url>
            <snapshots>
                <enabled>false</enabled>
            </snapshots>
        </pluginRepository>
    </pluginRepositories>

    <dependencies>
        <!-- Spring -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-context</artifactId>
            <version>${org.springframework-version}</version>
            <exclusions>
                <!-- Exclude Commons Logging in favor of SLF4j -->
                <exclusion>
                    <groupId>commons-logging</groupId>
                    <artifactId>commons-logging</artifactId>
                </exclusion>
            </exclusions>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-webmvc</artifactId>
            <version>${org.springframework-version}</version>
        </dependency>

        <!-- AspectJ -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.aspectj</groupId>
            <artifactId>aspectjrt</artifactId>
            <version>${org.aspectj-version}</version>
        </dependency>

        <!-- Logging -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
            <artifactId>slf4j-api</artifactId>
            <version>${org.slf4j-version}</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
            <artifactId>jcl-over-slf4j</artifactId>
            <version>${org.slf4j-version}</version>
            <scope>runtime</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
            <artifactId>slf4j-log4j12</artifactId>
            <version>${org.slf4j-version}</version>
            <scope>runtime</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>log4j</groupId>
            <artifactId>log4j</artifactId>
            <version>1.2.15</version>
            <exclusions>
                <exclusion>
                    <groupId>javax.mail</groupId>
                    <artifactId>mail</artifactId>
                </exclusion>
                <exclusion>
                    <groupId>javax.jms</groupId>
                    <artifactId>jms</artifactId>
                </exclusion>
                <exclusion>
                    <groupId>com.sun.jdmk</groupId>
                    <artifactId>jmxtools</artifactId>
                </exclusion>
                <exclusion>
                    <groupId>com.sun.jmx</groupId>
                    <artifactId>jmxri</artifactId>
                </exclusion>
            </exclusions>
            <scope>runtime</scope>
        </dependency>

        <!-- @Inject -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>javax.inject</groupId>
            <artifactId>javax.inject</artifactId>
            <version>1</version>
        </dependency>

        <!-- Servlet -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
            <artifactId>servlet-api</artifactId>
            <version>2.5</version>
            <scope>provided</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>javax.servlet.jsp</groupId>
            <artifactId>jsp-api</artifactId>
            <version>2.1</version>
            <scope>provided</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>javax.servlet</groupId>
            <artifactId>jstl</artifactId>
            <version>1.2</version>
        </dependency>

        <!-- Test -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>junit</groupId>
            <artifactId>junit</artifactId>
            <version>4.7</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>

        <!-- Boot -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
            <version>0.5.0.M6</version>
            <exclusions>
                <exclusion>
                    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-tomcat</artifactId>
                </exclusion>
            </exclusions>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-jetty</artifactId>
            <version>0.5.0.M6</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-actuator</artifactId>
            <version>0.5.0.M6</version>
        </dependency>


    </dependencies>
    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <artifactId>maven-eclipse-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>2.9</version>
                <configuration>
                    <additionalProjectnatures>
                        <projectnature>org.springframework.ide.eclipse.core.springnature</projectnature>
                    </additionalProjectnatures>
                    <additionalBuildcommands>
                        <buildcommand>org.springframework.ide.eclipse.core.springbuilder</buildcommand>
                    </additionalBuildcommands>
                    <downloadSources>true</downloadSources>
                    <downloadJavadocs>true</downloadJavadocs>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>2.5.1</version>
                <configuration>
                    <source>1.6</source>
                    <target>1.6</target>
                    <compilerArgument>-Xlint:all</compilerArgument>
                    <showWarnings>true</showWarnings>
                    <showDeprecation>true</showDeprecation>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
            <!-- com.ilppa.cocktail.Application -->
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-jar-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>2.4</version>
                <configuration>
                    <archive>
                        <manifest>
                            <mainClass>com.ilppa.cocktail.Application</mainClass>
                        </manifest>
                    </archive>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
                <artifactId>exec-maven-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>1.2.1</version>
                <configuration>
                    <mainClass>org.test.int1.Main</mainClass>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>
</project>

when I run mvn clean install the .jar is generated but when I launch it java -jar target/test-1.0.0-BUILD-SNAPSHOT.jar

I have an error

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/springframework/boot/SpringApplication
    at com.acme.test.Application.main(Application.java:12)
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication
    at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:366)
    at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:355)
    at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
    at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:354)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:425)
    at sun.misc.Launcher$AppClassLoader.loadClass(Launcher.java:308)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:358)
    ... 1 more

I don't understand, I have no errors in eclipse, I think the .jar is in maven depences

Another option is to use the Apache Maven Shade Plugin: This plugin provides the capability to package the artifact in an uber-jar, including its dependencies and to shade - i.e. rename - the packages of some of the dependencies.

add this to your build plugins section

<plugin>
     <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
     <artifactId>maven-shade-plugin</artifactId>
</plugin>

Adding below to pom.xml solved my problem

<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">

Here the packaging is jar type, hence you need to use manifest plugin, in order to add dependencies into the Manifest.mf

The problem here is that maven could find the dependencies in pom file and compile the source code and create the output jar. But when executing the jar, manifest.mf file contains no details of dependencies. Hence you got this error. This is a case of classpath errors.

Here you can find the details on how to do it.

The answer to the above question is "none of the above". When you download new STS it won't support the old Spring Boot parent version. Just update parent version with latest comes with STS it will work.

<parent>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
    <version>1.5.8.RELEASE</version>
    <relativePath/> <!-- lookup parent from repository -->
</parent>

If you have problem getting the latest, just create a new Spring Starter Project. Go to File->New->Spring Start Project and create a demo project you will get the latest parent version, change your version with that all will work. I do this every time I change STS.

Mine was caused by a corrupt Maven repository.

I deleted everything under C:\Users\<me>\.m2\repository.

Then did an Eclipse Maven Update, and it worked first time.

So it was simply spring-boot.jar got corrupted.

If you are running spring cloud application, make sure your boot version matches cloud version. You can check the version compatibility matrix at the bottom of this page : https://spring.io/projects/spring-cloud.

In my case, I did remove maven nature manually from .project file while having the project opened in Eclipse. So what I'd to do was to add maven nature again using the contextual menu (roght click on the project > configuration > add maven nature). Afterwards, everything worked nice :D

If you would like to stay in spring boot space just set the pom packaging to jar

<packaging>jar</packaging>

and add the spring-boot-maven-plugin to you build properties in the pom.xml file:

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

then a simple mvn package command will create a complete executable jar file.

See the very good spring reference doc for more details (doing it gradle style also) spring reference doc

Clean your maven cache and rerun:

mvn dependency:purge-local-repository

May be your dependencies not build correctly. Check compilation issue in project.

Clean and rebuild project.

For maven project: mvn clean install

For gradle projects: gradle clean build or gradlew clean build

I had the same problem and tried most of the solutions suggested above, but none worked for me. Eventually, I rebuild my entire com.springframework (maven) repository (by simply deleting .m2/org/springworkframework directory).

It worked for me.

Clearing metadata helped me or change the workspace.