Incompatible dependencies in Spring Boot (Maven)

Question

I have started creating a RESTful API using Spring Boot . I haven't touched Spring in 2 years. I am using Maven . I have the main class:

package com.tsakirogf.smartapi;

import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;

@SpringBootApplication
public class SmartapiApplication
{

    public static void main(String[] args)
    {
        SpringApplication.run(PeopleapiApplication.class, args);
    }

}

I have a Controller , Model and Service . 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 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>2.4.2</version>
        <relativePath/> <!-- lookup parent from repository -->
    </parent>
    <groupId>com.tsakirogf</groupId>
    <artifactId>peopleapi</artifactId>
    <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <name>smartapi</name>
    <description>Technical Test</description>
    <properties>
        <java.version>11</java.version>
<!--        <tomcat.version>8.5.63</tomcat.version>-->
    </properties>
    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.h2database</groupId>
            <artifactId>h2</artifactId>
            <version>1.4.200</version>
<!--            <scope>test</scope>-->
            <scope>runtime</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
            <version>2.4.2</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-data-jpa</artifactId>
            <version>2.4.2</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
            <version>2.4.2</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.data</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-data-commons</artifactId>
            <version>2.3.6.RELEASE</version>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>

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

The project is building successfully and the mvn clean and mvn install commands run successfully as well. The problem is that when I am trying to run it in IntelliJ I get this error:

2021-02-11 18:19:42.692 ERROR 14584 --- [           main] o.s.b.d.LoggingFailureAnalysisReporter   : 

***************************
APPLICATION FAILED TO START
***************************

Description:

An attempt was made to call a method that does not exist. The attempt was made from the following location:

    org.apache.catalina.authenticator.AuthenticatorBase.startInternal(AuthenticatorBase.java:1355)

The following method did not exist:

    'java.lang.String javax.servlet.ServletContext.getVirtualServerName()'

The method's class, javax.servlet.ServletContext, is available from the following locations:

    jar:file:/F:/Workspace/Uni/SoftwareEngineer/peopleapi/lib/javax.servlet.jar!/javax/servlet/ServletContext.class
    jar:file:/C:/Users/Fotis/.m2/repository/org/apache/tomcat/embed/tomcat-embed-core/9.0.41/tomcat-embed-core-9.0.41.jar!/javax/servlet/ServletContext.class

The class hierarchy was loaded from the following locations:

    javax.servlet.ServletContext: file:/F:/Workspace/Uni/SoftwareEngineer/peopleapi/lib/javax.servlet.jar


Action:

Correct the classpath of your application so that it contains a single, compatible version of javax.servlet.ServletContext


Process finished with exit code 1

Any thoughts or directions I should move to? I have tried to synchronize dependencies and tried the latest and RELEASE packages in the pom . I have also deleted the whole m2 repo (twice).

Answer 1

Your problem is F:/Workspace/Uni/SoftwareEngineer/peopleapi/lib/javax.servlet.jar. Check why you have that JAR in your classpath (most likely it comes through some script or so). This seems to be an older version than the one you're referencing in your pom.xml