javax/mail/MessagingException in Spring 4 MVC

Question

I have an application (Spring 4 MVC+Hibernate 4+MySQL+Maven integration example using annotations) , integrating Spring with Hibernate using annotation based configuration.

I have this error when starting the appl.

GRAVE: Excepción enviando evento inicializado de contexto a instancia de escuchador de clase org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener
java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: javax/mail/MessagingException
    at java.lang.Class.getDeclaredMethods0(Native Method)
    at java.lang.Class.privateGetDeclaredMethods(Class.java:2615)
    at java.lang.Class.getDeclaredMethods(Class.java:1860)
    at org.springframework.util.ReflectionUtils.getDeclaredMethods(ReflectionUtils.java:609)
    at org.springframework.util.ReflectionUtils.doWithMethods(ReflectionUtils.java:521)
    at org.springframework.util.ReflectionUtils.doWithMethods(ReflectionUtils.java:507)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.annotation.AutowiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor.determineCandidateConstructors(AutowiredAnnotationBeanPostProcessor.java:241)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.determineConstructorsFromBeanPostProcessors(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1069)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBeanInstance(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1042)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:510)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:482)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory$1.getObject(AbstractBeanFactory.java:306)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.getSingleton(DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.java:230)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.doGetBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:302)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.getBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:197)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory.preInstantiateSingletons(DefaultListableBeanFactory.java:772)
    at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.finishBeanFactoryInitialization(AbstractApplicationContext.java:839)
    at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.refresh(AbstractApplicationContext.java:538)
    at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoader.configureAndRefreshWebApplicationContext(ContextLoader.java:446)
    at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoader.initWebApplicationContext(ContextLoader.java:328)
    at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener.contextInitialized(ContextLoaderListener.java:107)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.listenerStart(StandardContext.java:5001)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.startInternal(StandardContext.java:5517)
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:150)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$StartChild.call(ContainerBase.java:1574)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$StartChild.call(ContainerBase.java:1564)
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:262)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1145)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:615)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: javax.mail.MessagingException
    at org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoaderBase.loadClass(WebappClassLoaderBase.java:1854)
    at org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoaderBase.loadClass(WebappClassLoaderBase.java:1703)
    ... 30 more

I have this in the pom.xml

 <dependency>
            <groupId>javax.mail</groupId>
            <artifactId>mail</artifactId>
            <version>1.4</version>
        </dependency>

and I've checked the repository and is there:

/Users/paquirrin/.m2/repository/javax/mail/mail/1.4

I've updated the maven project 1000 times, but it doesn't work!

I run the project in a tomcat7 at localhost

Answer 1

You should not have a need to add the mail api's to your classpath, since spring will include them transitively (given you are using spring-boot).

In case you are using spring-framework without boot, you can (as suggested in the documentation), also ensure the JavaMail library (com.sun.mail:javax.mail) is on the classpath.

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-context-support</artifactId>
    <version>4.3.27.RELEASE</version>
</dependency>

<dependency>
    <groupId>com.sun.mail</groupId>
    <artifactId>javax.mail</artifactId>
    <version>1.6.2</version>
</dependency>

Answer 2

There is a requirement for some jars according to Spring 4 docs in order to make it work. You are probably missing some of them.

The following additional jars to be on the classpath of your application in order to be able to use the Spring Framework’s email library.

• The JavaMail mail.jar library
• The JAF activation.jar library

All of these libraries are freely available on the web.

Or there might be something with Maven. Sometimes it helps if you remove .m2 folder and then run mvn install on your project to download all the dependencies with the right versions.

Answer 3

The artifact has been already moved from javax.mail >> javax.mail-api.

So, it is better not to use this given below.

<!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/javax.mail/mail -->
<dependency>
    <groupId>javax.mail</groupId>
    <artifactId>mail</artifactId>
    <version>1.4</version>
</dependency>

Instead, use this latest dependency :

<!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/javax.mail/javax.mail-api -->
<dependency>
    <groupId>javax.mail</groupId>
    <artifactId>javax.mail-api</artifactId>
    <version>1.5.6</version>
</dependency>

After adding this dependency, then do these steps:

• Go to Project Menu >> Activate Build Automatically Option >> Then Click on Clean Option there.

• After that, do Maven Clean and Maven Install.

• Delete the war and the extracted war folder from tomcat/webapps and redeploy the war again.

Through this, the problem may be solved.

Answer 4

Seems you are using the wrong dependency. Try the following:

<dependency>
    <groupId>javax.mail</groupId>
    <artifactId>mailapi</artifactId>
    <version>1.4.3</version>
</dependency>

Make sure to refresh the dependencies, and rebuild the project.