sbt failed to start with NoClassDefFoundError

Question

On a remote Windows 10 system sbt failes to start with a NoClassDefFoundError:

C:\WORKBENCH\BPF\my-project>sbt -Djavax.net.ssl.trustStoreType=WINDOWS-ROOT -Dsbt.boot.credentials="C:\WORKBENCH\BPF\my-project\credentials.txt" -Dsbt.boot.directory=C:\WORKBENCH\BPF\.sbt\boot -Dsbt.coursier.home=C:\WORKBENCH\BPF\coursier -v
# Executing command line:
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre1.8.0_321\bin\java.exe"
-Djavax.net.ssl.trustStore="C:\Program Files (x86)\Java\jre1.8.0_321\lib\security\cacerts"
-Djavax.net.ssl.trustStorePassword=changeit
-Xms1024m
-Xmx1024m
-Xss4M
-XX:ReservedCodeCacheSize=128m
-cp
"C:\Program Files (x86)\sbt\bin\sbt-launch.jar"
xsbt.boot.Boot
-Djavax.net.ssl.trustStoreType=WINDOWS-ROOT
-Dsbt.boot.credentials=C:\WORKBENCH\BPF\my-project\credentials.txt
-Dsbt.boot.directory=C:\WORKBENCH\BPF\.sbt\boot
-Dsbt.coursier.home=C:\WORKBENCH\BPF\coursier
 
java.lang.ClassCastException: java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError cannot be cast to xsbti.FullReload
       at sbt.internal.XMainConfiguration.run(XMainConfiguration.java:59)
        at sbt.xMain.run(Main.scala:46)
        at xsbt.boot.Launch$.$anonfun$run$1(Launch.scala:149)
        at xsbt.boot.Launch$.withContextLoader(Launch.scala:176)
        at xsbt.boot.Launch$.run(Launch.scala:149)
        at xsbt.boot.Launch$.$anonfun$apply$1(Launch.scala:44)
        at xsbt.boot.Launch$.launch(Launch.scala:159)
        at xsbt.boot.Launch$.apply(Launch.scala:44)
        at xsbt.boot.Launch$.apply(Launch.scala:21)
        at xsbt.boot.Boot$.runImpl(Boot.scala:78)
        at xsbt.boot.Boot$.run(Boot.scala:73)
        at xsbt.boot.Boot$.main(Boot.scala:21)
        at xsbt.boot.Boot.main(Boot.scala)
[error] [launcher] error during sbt launcher: java.lang.ClassCastException: java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError cannot be cast to xsbti.FullReload

Tried with different SBT versions (1.6.2, 1.5.8, 1.4.9) by changing project/build.properties): The Stack Trace differs depending on the version, but it is always a NoClassDefFoundError.
The SBT version specified in the project is successfully downloaded by the launcher.

I suspect local file permission problems as cause (e.g. due to security policies) therefore i moved the boot and the coursier cache directory. However, this did not bring the desired success.

Does anyone have an idea what the Problem could be?

user_19090652 · Answer

(I did not do much findings about it.) In my case i could fix it by changing to appropriate java version. Initially i ran with java 18v mistakenly and then changing to java 11v it worked.

user_3415346 · Answer

I don't have a real diagnosis or causal explanation, but I did solve a similar problem (identical error message, Linux) by clearing out the sbt cache (the .sbt folder within your user directory).

sbt failed to start with NoClassDefFoundError

2 Answers