java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: org.springframework.util.StringUtils.matchesCharacter(Ljava/lang/String;C)Z

Question

I'm in the process of deploying a.war spring boot backend onto Digital Ocean using Tomcat. I'm not sure how to check the runtime versions of the jar as other posts have suggested since this is being run remotely. Thanks

Message

Handler dispatch failed; nested exception is java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: org.springframework.util.StringUtils.matchesCharacter(Ljava/lang/String;C)Z

Exception

org.springframework.web.util.NestedServletException: Handler dispatch failed; nested exception is java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: org.springframework.util.StringUtils.matchesCharacter(Ljava/lang/String;C)Z
org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.doDispatch(DispatcherServlet.java:1055)
org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.doService(DispatcherServlet.java:943)
org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.processRequest(FrameworkServlet.java:1006)
org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.doGet(FrameworkServlet.java:898)
javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:626)
org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.service(FrameworkServlet.java:883)
javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:733)
org.apache.tomcat.websocket.server.WsFilter.doFilter(WsFilter.java:52)
org.springframework.web.filter.RequestContextFilter.doFilterInternal(RequestContextFilter.java:100)
org.springframework.web.filter.OncePerRequestFilter.doFilter(OncePerRequestFilter.java:119)
org.springframework.web.filter.OncePerRequestFilter.doFilter(OncePerRequestFilter.java:103)
org.springframework.web.filter.OncePerRequestFilter.doFilter(OncePerRequestFilter.java:103)
org.springframework.boot.web.servlet.support.ErrorPageFilter.forwardToErrorPage(ErrorPageFilter.java:191)
org.springframework.boot.web.servlet.support.ErrorPageFilter.handleException(ErrorPageFilter.java:176)
org.springframework.boot.web.servlet.support.ErrorPageFilter.doFilter(ErrorPageFilter.java:143)
org.springframework.boot.web.servlet.support.ErrorPageFilter.access$000(ErrorPageFilter.java:64)
org.springframework.boot.web.servlet.support.ErrorPageFilter$1.doFilterInternal(ErrorPageFilter.java:101)
org.springframework.web.filter.OncePerRequestFilter.doFilter(OncePerRequestFilter.java:119)
org.springframework.boot.web.servlet.support.ErrorPageFilter.doFilter(ErrorPageFilter.java:119)
org.springframework.web.filter.CharacterEncodingFilter.doFilterInternal(CharacterEncodingFilter.java:201)
org.springframework.web.filter.OncePerRequestFilter.doFilter(OncePerRequestFilter.java:119)

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 https://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
<parent>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
    <version>2.3.5.RELEASE</version>
    <relativePath/> <!-- lookup parent from repository -->
</parent>
<groupId>com.nybc</groupId>
<artifactId>nybc</artifactId>
<version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
<packaging>war</packaging>
<name>nybc</name>
<description>NYBC web server</description>

<properties>
    <java.version>8</java.version>
</properties>

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
        <scope>provided</scope>
    </dependency>
    
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-data-jpa</artifactId>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-jdbc</artifactId>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.postgresql</groupId>
        <artifactId>postgresql</artifactId>
        </dependency>


    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.glassfish.jersey.containers</groupId>
        <artifactId>jersey-container-servlet</artifactId>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.glassfish.jersey.inject</groupId>
        <artifactId>jersey-hk2</artifactId>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

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

Thank you.

Answer 1

You are most likely mixing up Spring dependencies from different framework versions. StringUtils.matchesCharacter() method was introduced in Spring 5.2.9 . It looks like you are using Spring Boot 2.3.5.RELEASE which depends on Spring 5.2.10 so you should be fine, however:

1. You are either deploying to a runtime environment that provides spring-boot-starter-web jar in different, lower version.

2. Or the dependency spring-boot-starter-web should not be marked as <scope>provided</scope> in your pom.xml because it's needed in the runtime.