SpringBoot fails with compatability problems

Question

This 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>

    <properties>
        <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
        <maven.compiler.source>1.8</maven.compiler.source>
        <maven.compiler.target>1.8</maven.compiler.target>
        <start-class>com.phoneBook.Main</start-class>
    </properties>

    <groupId>SpringProject</groupId>
    <artifactId>SpringProject</artifactId>
    <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <build>
        <plugins>

            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-jar-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>3.0.2</version>
                <configuration>
                    <archive>
                        <manifest>
                            <mainClass>com.phoneBook.Main</mainClass>
                        </manifest>
                    </archive>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>

            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>1.5.10.RELEASE</version>
                <executions>
                    <execution>
                        <goals>
                            <goal>repackage</goal>
                        </goals>
                    </execution>
                </executions>
            </plugin>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
                <configuration>
                    <source>1.8</source>
                    <target>1.8</target>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>

    <parent>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
        <version>1.5.10.RELEASE</version>
    </parent>

    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.apache.logging.log4j</groupId>
            <artifactId>log4j-core</artifactId>
            <version>2.10.0</version>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
        </dependency>

    </dependencies>

</project>

When I try to load a simple SpringBoot project it fails with the following error:

java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: org.springframework.util.ObjectUtils.unwrapOptional(Ljava/lang/Object;)Ljava/lang/Object;
    at org.springframework.validation.DataBinder.<init>(DataBinder.java:179)
    at org.springframework.boot.bind.RelaxedDataBinder.<init>(RelaxedDataBinder.java:83)
    at org.springframework.boot.bind.PropertiesConfigurationFactory.doBindPropertiesToTarget(PropertiesConfigurationFactory.java:253)
    at org.springframework.boot.bind.PropertiesConfigurationFactory.bindPropertiesToTarget(PropertiesConfigurationFactory.java:240)
    at org.springframework.boot.context.config.ConfigFileApplicationListener.bindToSpringApplication(ConfigFileApplicationListener.java:241)
    at org.springframework.boot.context.config.ConfigFileApplicationListener.postProcessEnvironment(ConfigFileApplicationListener.java:197)
    at org.springframework.boot.context.config.ConfigFileApplicationListener.onApplicationEnvironmentPreparedEvent(ConfigFileApplicationListener.java:182)
    at org.springframework.boot.context.config.ConfigFileApplicationListener.onApplicationEvent(ConfigFileApplicationListener.java:168)
    at org.springframework.context.event.SimpleApplicationEventMulticaster.doInvokeListener(SimpleApplicationEventMulticaster.java:172)
    at org.springframework.context.event.SimpleApplicationEventMulticaster.invokeListener(SimpleApplicationEventMulticaster.java:165)
    at org.springframework.context.event.SimpleApplicationEventMulticaster.multicastEvent(SimpleApplicationEventMulticaster.java:139)
    at org.springframework.context.event.SimpleApplicationEventMulticaster.multicastEvent(SimpleApplicationEventMulticaster.java:127)
    at org.springframework.boot.context.event.EventPublishingRunListener.environmentPrepared(EventPublishingRunListener.java:74)
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplicationRunListeners.environmentPrepared(SpringApplicationRunListeners.java:54)
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.prepareEnvironment(SpringApplication.java:325)
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.run(SpringApplication.java:296)
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.run(SpringApplication.java:1118)
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.run(SpringApplication.java:1107)
    at com.phoneBook.Main.main(Main.java:30)

I understood from reading posts here that it's an issue of compatability with dependencies. I was trying to use different versions without success.

It's not a duplicate of: Spring Boot Application Unable to start?

I added the dependencies shown there and I still got the same error.

Answer 1

By the error we can see there is a version mismatch between spring-context and spring-core :

178:  public DataBinder(@Nullable Object target, String objectName) {
179:     this.target = ObjectUtils.unwrapOptional(target);
180:     this.objectName = objectName;
181:  }

To check which version of each is used run :

mvn dependency:tree | grep 'spring-context\|spring-core'

You can go further and check the actual packaged version, it should be the same as shown by maven :

jar tf SpringProject-1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar | grep 'spring-context\|spring-core'

If it shows :

BOOT-INF/lib/spring-context-4.3.14.RELEASE.jar
BOOT-INF/lib/spring-core-4.3.14.RELEASE.jar

and the error still persists, please post a complete source sample and steps to reproduce it.