IllegalArgumentException when deploying Spring Boot based application to WebLogic

Question

I'm trying to deploy my Spring Boot 2 based application on to an Oracle WebLogic 12.1.3 server and the deployment is failing due to the following error:

weblogic.application.ModuleException: null
null
        at weblogic.servlet.internal.WebAppModule.createModuleException(WebAppModule.java:1824)
        at weblogic.servlet.internal.WebAppModule.init(WebAppModule.java:270)
        at weblogic.servlet.internal.WebAppModule.init(WebAppModule.java:682)
        at weblogic.application.internal.flow.ScopedModuleDriver.init(ScopedModuleDriver.java:162)
        at weblogic.application.internal.ExtensibleModuleWrapper.init(ExtensibleModuleWrapper.java:98)
        Truncated. see log file for complete stacktrace
Caused By: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException
        at com.bea.objectweb.asm.ClassReader.<init>(Unknown Source)
        at com.bea.objectweb.asm.ClassReader.<init>(Unknown Source)
        at weblogic.application.utils.annotation.ClassInfoImpl.<init>(ClassInfoImpl.java:41)
        at weblogic.application.utils.annotation.ClassfinderClassInfos.polulateOneClassInfo(ClassfinderClassInfos.java:240)
        at weblogic.application.utils.annotation.ClassfinderClassInfos.populateClassInfos(ClassfinderClassInfos.java:193)
        at weblogic.application.utils.annotation.ClassfinderClassInfos.<init>(ClassfinderClassInfos.java:44)
        at weblogic.servlet.internal.War.initializeClassInfosIfNecessary(War.java:446)
        at weblogic.servlet.internal.War.getAnnotatedClasses(War.java:376)
        at weblogic.servlet.utils.WarUtils.isJsfApplication(WarUtils.java:258)
        at weblogic.servlet.internal.WebAppModule.detectJsfApplication(WebAppModule.java:277)
        at weblogic.servlet.internal.WebAppModule.init(WebAppModule.java:262)
        at weblogic.servlet.internal.WebAppModule.init(WebAppModule.java:682)
        at weblogic.application.internal.flow.ScopedModuleDriver.init(ScopedModuleDriver.java:162)
        at weblogic.application.internal.ExtensibleModuleWrapper.init(ExtensibleModuleWrapper.java:98)
        at weblogic.application.internal.flow.ModuleListenerInvoker.init(ModuleListenerInvoker.java:84)
        at weblogic.application.internal.flow.InitModulesFlow.initModule(InitModulesFlow.java:288)
        at weblogic.application.internal.flow.InitModulesFlow.initModules(InitModulesFlow.java:301)
        at weblogic.application.internal.flow.InitModulesFlow.prepare(InitModulesFlow.java:329)
        at weblogic.application.internal.BaseDeployment$1.next(BaseDeployment.java:706)
        at weblogic.application.utils.StateMachineDriver.nextState(StateMachineDriver.java:42)
        at weblogic.application.internal.BaseDeployment.prepare(BaseDeployment.java:237)
        at weblogic.application.internal.SingleModuleDeployment.prepare(SingleModuleDeployment.java:48)
        at weblogic.application.internal.DeploymentStateChecker.prepare(DeploymentStateChecker.java:158)
        at weblogic.deploy.internal.targetserver.AppContainerInvoker.prepare(AppContainerInvoker.java:61)
        at weblogic.deploy.internal.targetserver.operations.ActivateOperation.createAndPrepareContainer(ActivateOperation.java:208)
        at weblogic.deploy.internal.targetserver.operations.ActivateOperation.doPrepare(ActivateOperation.java:98)
        at weblogic.deploy.internal.targetserver.operations.AbstractOperation.prepare(AbstractOperation.java:233)
        at weblogic.deploy.internal.targetserver.DeploymentManager.handleDeploymentPrepare(DeploymentManager.java:749)
        at weblogic.deploy.internal.targetserver.DeploymentManager.prepareDeploymentList(DeploymentManager.java:1238)
        at weblogic.deploy.internal.targetserver.DeploymentManager.handlePrepare(DeploymentManager.java:252)
        at weblogic.deploy.internal.targetserver.DeploymentServiceDispatcher.prepare(DeploymentServiceDispatcher.java:172)
        at weblogic.deploy.service.internal.targetserver.DeploymentReceiverCallbackDeliverer.doPrepareCallback(DeploymentReceiverCallbackDeliverer.java:171)
        at weblogic.deploy.service.internal.targetserver.DeploymentReceiverCallbackDeliverer.access$000(DeploymentReceiverCallbackDeliverer.java:13)
        at weblogic.deploy.service.internal.targetserver.DeploymentReceiverCallbackDeliverer$1.run(DeploymentReceiverCallbackDeliverer.java:46)
        at weblogic.work.SelfTuningWorkManagerImpl$WorkAdapterImpl.run(SelfTuningWorkManagerImpl.java:548)
        at weblogic.work.ExecuteThread.execute(ExecuteThread.java:311)
        at weblogic.work.ExecuteThread.run(ExecuteThread.java:263)

At first, I thought it was due to a mismatch between my targeted Java version and the one the server is running on ( like this other question ) but my app has Java 8 has target and my server is also running on Java 8.

I also found this issue about not being able to deploy application that contains Log4j 2.9.x to WebLogic server due to com.objectweb.asm.ClassReader errors but my app only uses 2.1.0 so I don't think it applies.

Keep in mind that my app runs perfectly locally but it doesn't even deploy on the server so the war is being successfully created. Any idea of what might be causing this issue?

---

pom.xml contents

<?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/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

    <groupId>XXX</groupId>
    <artifactId>XXX</artifactId>
    <version>x.x.x</version>
    <packaging>war</packaging>

    <name>XXX</name>
    <description>XXX</description>

    <parent>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
        <version>2.0.1.RELEASE</version>
        <relativePath /> <!-- lookup parent from repository -->
    </parent>

    <properties>
        <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
        <project.reporting.outputEncoding>UTF-8</project.reporting.outputEncoding>
        <java.version>1.8</java.version>
    </properties>

    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-devtools</artifactId>
            <scope>runtime</scope>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
            <scope>test</scope>
            <exclusions>
                <exclusion>
                    <groupId>com.vaadin.external.google</groupId>
                    <artifactId>android-json</artifactId>
                </exclusion>
            </exclusions>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.security</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-security-core</artifactId>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.security</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-security-config</artifactId>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.security</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-security-web</artifactId>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.apache.commons</groupId>
            <artifactId>commons-dbcp2</artifactId>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.xerial</groupId>
            <artifactId>sqlite-jdbc</artifactId>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.json</groupId>
            <artifactId>json</artifactId>
            <version>20180130</version>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-actuator</artifactId>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-jdbc</artifactId>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-tomcat</artifactId>
            <scope>provided</scope>
        </dependency>

    </dependencies>

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

</project>

Answer 1

This problem may happen if, in the project dependencies, there is some library too recent for Weblogic 12.1. I had to check all the (transitive) dependencies in the project.