SonarQube doesn't work with Intellij Community 2019.2

Question

I'm using SonarLint 4.1.1.3345 with IntelliJ Community 2019.2 version by binding project to our SonarQube (with SonarJava 5.3 (build 13828)installed) server. However, I got error with below stack trace from SonarLint log:

Java Main Files AST scan
60 source files to be analyzed
Unable to create symbol table for : C:\Users\username\SomeFile.java
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Unsupported class file major version 55
    at org.objectweb.asm.ClassReader.<init>(ClassReader.java:166)
    at org.objectweb.asm.ClassReader.<init>(ClassReader.java:148)
    at org.objectweb.asm.ClassReader.<init>(ClassReader.java:136)
    at org.sonar.java.resolve.BytecodeCompleter.loadClass(BytecodeCompleter.java:204)
    at org.sonar.java.resolve.Symbols.<init>(Symbols.java:176)
    at org.sonar.java.resolve.SemanticModel.createFor(SemanticModel.java:59)
    at org.sonar.java.model.VisitorsBridge.visitFile(VisitorsBridge.java:110)
    at org.sonar.java.ast.JavaAstScanner.simpleScan(JavaAstScanner.java:96)
    at org.sonar.java.ast.JavaAstScanner.scan(JavaAstScanner.java:68)
    at org.sonar.java.JavaSquid.scanSources(JavaSquid.java:116)
    at org.sonar.java.JavaSquid.scan(JavaSquid.java:110)
    at org.sonar.plugins.java.JavaSquidSensor.execute(JavaSquidSensor.java:93)
    at org.sonarsource.sonarlint.core.analyzer.sensor.SensorsExecutor.executeSensor(SensorsExecutor.java:81)
    at org.sonarsource.sonarlint.core.analyzer.sensor.SensorsExecutor.execute(SensorsExecutor.java:72)
    at org.sonarsource.sonarlint.core.container.analysis.AnalysisContainer.doAfterStart(AnalysisContainer.java:132)
    at org.sonarsource.sonarlint.core.container.ComponentContainer.startComponents(ComponentContainer.java:125)
    at org.sonarsource.sonarlint.core.container.ComponentContainer.execute(ComponentContainer.java:110)
    at org.sonarsource.sonarlint.core.container.storage.StorageAnalyzer.analyze(StorageAnalyzer.java:75)
    at org.sonarsource.sonarlint.core.container.storage.StorageContainerHandler.analyze(StorageContainerHandler.java:82)
    at org.sonarsource.sonarlint.core.ConnectedSonarLintEngineImpl.lambda$analyze$0(ConnectedSonarLintEngineImpl.java:152)
    at org.sonarsource.sonarlint.core.ConnectedSonarLintEngineImpl.withReadLock(ConnectedSonarLintEngineImpl.java:344)
    at org.sonarsource.sonarlint.core.ConnectedSonarLintEngineImpl.withReadLock(ConnectedSonarLintEngineImpl.java:334)
    at org.sonarsource.sonarlint.core.ConnectedSonarLintEngineImpl.analyze(ConnectedSonarLintEngineImpl.java:149)
    at org.sonarlint.intellij.core.ConnectedSonarLintFacade.analyze(ConnectedSonarLintFacade.java:74)
    at org.sonarlint.intellij.core.SonarLintFacade.startAnalysis(SonarLintFacade.java:63)
    at org.sonarlint.intellij.analysis.SonarLintAnalyzer.analyzeModule(SonarLintAnalyzer.java:97)
    at org.sonarlint.intellij.analysis.SonarLintTask.analyze(SonarLintTask.java:176)
    at org.sonarlint.intellij.analysis.SonarLintTask.run(SonarLintTask.java:100)
    at org.sonarlint.intellij.analysis.SonarLintUserTask.run(SonarLintUserTask.java:39)
    at org.sonarlint.intellij.analysis.SonarLintJobManager.lambda$runTask$1(SonarLintJobManager.java:120)
    at com.intellij.openapi.progress.impl.CoreProgressManager.lambda$runProcess$2(CoreProgressManager.java:169)
    at com.intellij.openapi.progress.impl.CoreProgressManager.registerIndicatorAndRun(CoreProgressManager.java:591)
    at com.intellij.openapi.progress.impl.CoreProgressManager.executeProcessUnderProgress(CoreProgressManager.java:537)
    at com.intellij.openapi.progress.impl.ProgressManagerImpl.executeProcessUnderProgress(ProgressManagerImpl.java:59)
    at com.intellij.openapi.progress.impl.CoreProgressManager.runProcess(CoreProgressManager.java:156)
    at org.sonarlint.intellij.analysis.SonarLintJobManager.lambda$runTask$2(SonarLintJobManager.java:120)
    at java.base/java.util.concurrent.Executors$RunnableAdapter.call(Executors.java:515)
    at java.base/java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:264)
    at java.base/java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1128)
    at java.base/java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:628)
    at java.base/java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:834)

"Unsupported class file major version 55" tells me that the class file Sonar used for code analysis is for java 11 version whereas my class was compiled with java 7 (I took the same class and ran it with javap it showed major version 51), and I don't even have java 11 installed on my system.

Because it works for my teammates. The only difference is they have lower version of IntelliJ installed. So I downloaded IntelliJ 2019.1.4 and it started working.

Could someone explain why it doesn't work with later version of IntelliJ and why the above error occurred? Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

This is a known limitation about classloaders in the IDE/sonarlint/plugin:

https://community.sonarsource.com/t/sonarlint-analysis-fails-on-intellij-2019-2-with-java-11-runtime/12905/3

https://jira.sonarsource.com/browse/SONARJAVA-3056

Example with SonarLint

In SonarLint IntelliJ running environment, this is more or less the classpath hierarchy:

JDK -> IntelliJ classes -> SonarLint (+deps) [child-first] -> Java plugin (+packaged deps) [child-first] -> Squid [parent-first]. So imagine we analyze a class that is using a class X. If IntelliJ's classloader happens to also use class X (same fully qualified name), this will be used instead of the X provided in the analysis classpath, even if they are to different copies of the class (different versions, for example).