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>

ISparkes ISparkes · Accepted Answer · 2016-06-28T08:47:52

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

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

3 Answers