Spring boot shows 'can not be resolved' even if the dependency exists in classpath

Question

I have a spring boot application having starter-data-jpa dependency added to pom.xml. I can clearly find the javax.persistence package present in maven dependency section. But I am unable to use @Entity annotation. Upon manually entering import javax.persistence .Entity eclipse shows unresolved dependency. Thanks in advance.

here is my pom.xml file.

<?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>
    <parent>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
        <version>2.1.6.RELEASE</version>
        <relativePath/> <!-- lookup parent from repository -->
    </parent>
    <groupId>com.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>currency-exchange-service</artifactId>
    <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <name>currency-exchange-serviceweb</name>
    <description>Demo project for Spring Boot</description>

<properties>
    <java.version>1.8</java.version>
    <spring-cloud.version>Greenwich.SR2</spring-cloud.version>
</properties>

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

    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-devtools</artifactId>
        <scope>runtime</scope>
        <optional>true</optional>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
        <scope>test</scope>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-data-jpa</artifactId>
        <scope>test</scope>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.h2database</groupId>
        <artifactId>h2</artifactId>
        <scope>test</scope>
    </dependency>       
</dependencies>

<dependencyManagement>
    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.cloud</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-cloud-dependencies</artifactId>
            <version>${spring-cloud.version}</version>
            <type>pom</type>
            <scope>import</scope>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
</dependencyManagement>

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

Answer 1

You're specifying <scope>test</scope> for the JPA starter, which specifically tells Maven that you only want that dependency available for test classes. Remove the scope and it should work.

Answer 2

Try removing <scope> for dependency JPA starter from pom.xml, do mvn clean install -U . this should solve your issue.

Answer 3

You should remove <scope>test</scope> from the spring-boot-starter-data-jpa dependency first.

If it still doesn't work, verify that your project runs when using Maven directly, by using the following command within a terminal:

mvn spring-boot:run

If this command works, reimport your project within your IDE, and test again. Often, the IDE doesn't immediately update the classpath, and is at fault.