Why am I getting a NoClassDefFoundError in Java?

This is caused when there is a class file that your code depends on and it is present at compile time but not found at runtime. Look for differences in your build time and runtime classpaths.

I have found that sometimes I get a NoClassDefFound error when code is compiled with an incompatible version of the class found at runtime. The specific instance I recall is with the apache axis library. There were actually 2 versions on my runtime classpath and it was picking up the out of date and incompatible version and not the correct one, causing a NoClassDefFound error. This was in a command line app where I was using a command similar to this.

set classpath=%classpath%;axis.jar

I was able to get it to pick up the proper version by using:

set classpath=axis.jar;%classpath%;

One interesting case in which you might see a lot of NoClassDefFoundErrors is when you:

1. throw a RuntimeException in the static block of your class Example
2. Intercept it (or if it just doesn't matter like it is thrown in a test case)
3. Try to create an instance of this class Example

static class Example {
    static {
        thisThrowsRuntimeException();
    }
}

static class OuterClazz {

    OuterClazz() {
        try {
            new Example();
        } catch (Throwable ignored) { //simulating catching RuntimeException from static block
            // DO NOT DO THIS IN PRODUCTION CODE, THIS IS JUST AN EXAMPLE in StackOverflow
        }

        new Example(); //this throws NoClassDefFoundError
    }
}

NoClassDefError will be thrown accompanied with ExceptionInInitializerError from the static block RuntimeException.

This is especially important case when you see NoClassDefFoundErrors in your UNIT TESTS.

In a way you're "sharing" the static block execution between tests, but the initial ExceptionInInitializerError will be just in one test case. The first one that uses the problematic Example class. Other test cases that use the Example class will just throw NoClassDefFoundErrors.

Java ClassNotFoundException vs NoClassDefFoundError

[ClassLoader]

Static vs Dynamic class loading

Static(Implicit) class loading - result of reference, instantiation, or inheritance.

MyClass myClass = new MyClass();

Dynamic(Explicit) class loading is result of Class.forName(), loadClass(), findSystemClass()

MyClass myClass = (MyClass) Class.forName("MyClass").newInstance();

Every class has a ClassLoader which uses loadClass(String name); that is why

explicit class loader uses implicit class loader

NoClassDefFoundError is a part of explicit class loader. It is Error to guarantee that during compilation this class was presented but now (in run time) it is absent.

ClassNotFoundException is a part of implicit class loader. It is Exception to be elastic with scenarios where additionally it can be used - for example reflection.

Two different checkout copies of the same project

In my case, the problem was Eclipse's inability to differentiate between two different copies of the same project. I have one locked on trunk (SVN version control) and the other one working in one branch at a time. I tried out one change in the working copy as a JUnit test case, which included extracting a private inner class to be a public class on its own and while it was working, I open the other copy of the project to look around at some other part of the code that needed changes. At some point, the NoClassDefFoundError popped up complaining that the private inner class was not there; double-clicking in the stack trace brought me to the source file in the wrong project copy.

Closing the trunk copy of the project and running the test case again got rid of the problem.

I fixed my problem by disabling the preDexLibraries for all modules:

dexOptions {
        preDexLibraries false
        ...

NoClassDefFoundError can also occur when a static initializer tries to load a resource bundle that is not available in runtime, for example a properties file that the affected class tries to load from the META-INF directory, but isn’t there. If you don’t catch NoClassDefFoundError, sometimes you won’t be able to see the full stack trace; to overcome this you can temporarily use a catch clause for Throwable:

try {
    // Statement(s) that cause(s) the affected class to be loaded
} catch (Throwable t) {
    Logger.getLogger("<logger-name>").info("Loading my class went wrong", t);
}

I got this error when I add Maven dependency of another module to my project, the issue was finally solved by add -Xss2m to my program's JVM option(It's one megabyte by default since JDK5.0). It's believed the program does not have enough stack to load class.

In my case I was getting this error due to a mismatch in the JDK versions. When I tried to run the application from Intelij it wasn't working but then running it from the command line worked. This is because Intelij was attempting to run it with the Java 11 JDK that was setup but on the command line it was running with the Java 8 JDK. After switching that setting under File > Project Structure > Project Settings > Project SDK, it worked for me.

Update [https://www.infoq.com/articles/single-file-execution-java11/]:

In Java SE 11, you get the option to launch a single source code file directly, without intermediate compilation. Just for your convenience, so that newbies like you don't have to run javac + java (of course, leaving them confused why that is).

I was getting NoClassDefFoundError while trying to deploy application on Tomcat/JBOSS servers. I played with different dependencies to resolve the issue, but kept getting the same error. Marked all javax.* dependencies as provided in pom.xml, And war literally had no Dependency in it. Still the issue kept popping up.

Finally realized that src/main/webapps/WEB-INF/classes had classes folder which was getting copied into my war, so instead of compiled classes, this classes were getting copied, hence no dependency change was resolving the issue.

Hence be careful if any previously compiled data is getting copied, After deleting classes folder and fresh compilation, It worked!..

I got NoClassDefFound errors when I didn't export a class on the "Order and Export" tab in the Java Build Path of my project. Make sure to put a checkmark in the "Order and Export" tab of any dependencies you add to the project's build path. See Eclipse warning: XXXXXXXXXXX.jar will not be exported or published. Runtime ClassNotFoundExceptions may result.

It could also be because you copy the code file from an IDE with a certain package name and you want to try to run it using terminal. You will have to remove the package name from the code first. This happens to me.

Everyone talks here about some Java configuration stuff, JVM problems etc., in my case the error was not related to these topics at all and had a very trivial and easy to solve reason: I had a wrong annotation at my endpoint in my Controller (Spring Boot application).

I have had an interesting issue wiht NoClassDefFoundError in JavaEE working with Liberty server. I was using IMS resource adapters and my server.xml had already resource adapter for imsudbJXA.rar. When I added new adapter for imsudbXA.rar, I would start getting this error for instance objects for DLIException, IMSConnectionSpec or SQLInteractionSpec. I could not figure why but I resolved it by creating new server.xml for my work using only imsudbXA.rar. I am sure using multiple resource adapters in server.xml is fine, I just had no time to look into that.

I had this error but could not figure out the solution based on this thread but solved it myself.

For my problem I was compiling this code:

package valentines;

import java.math.BigInteger;
import java.util.ArrayList;

public class StudentSolver {
    public static ArrayList<Boolean> solve(ArrayList<ArrayList<BigInteger>> problems) {
        //DOING WORK HERE
        
    }
    public static void main(String[] args){
        //TESTING SOLVE FUNCTION
    }
    
}

I was then compiling this code in a folder structure that was like /ProjectName/valentines Compiling it worked fine but trying to execute: java StudentSolver

I was getting the NoClassDefError.

To fix this I simply removed: package valentines;

I'm not very well versed in java packages and such but this how I fixed my error so sorry if this was already answered by someone else but I couldn't interpret it to my problem.