How to resolve Unsupported major.minor version 51.0 error when trying to run Maven project Java

Question

I'm not sure what has happened but I have a maven based Java project in Eclipse (Mars) where when I go to Run As-> Mvn install (from the UI), I've tried cleaning the project, Maven-> update project, mvn eclipse:eclipse, etc...nothing works

I get the following Exception thrown at me:

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.UnsupportedClassVersionError: org/apache/maven/cli/MavenCli : Unsupported major.minor version 51.0
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass1(Native Method)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClassCond(ClassLoader.java:637)
    at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass(ClassLoader.java:621)
    at java.security.SecureClassLoader.defineClass(SecureClassLoader.java:141)
    at java.net.URLClassLoader.defineClass(URLClassLoader.java:283)
    at java.net.URLClassLoader.access$000(URLClassLoader.java:58)
    at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:197)
    at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
    at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:190)
    at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.realm.ClassRealm.loadClassFromSelf(ClassRealm.java:401)
    at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.strategy.SelfFirstStrategy.loadClass(SelfFirstStrategy.java:42)
    at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.realm.ClassRealm.unsynchronizedLoadClass(ClassRealm.java:271)
    at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.realm.ClassRealm.loadClass(ClassRealm.java:254)
    at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.realm.ClassRealm.loadClass(ClassRealm.java:239)
    at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.launcher.Launcher.getMainClass(Launcher.java:144)
    at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.launcher.Launcher.launchEnhanced(Launcher.java:266)
    at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.launcher.Launcher.launch(Launcher.java:229)
    at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.launcher.Launcher.mainWithExitCode(Launcher.java:415)
    at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.launcher.Launcher.main(Launcher.java:356)

Earlier this was working with no trouble. This project is configured at with Java 1.6

I run mvn -version

Apache Maven 3.3.9 (bb52d8502b132ec0a5a3f4c09453c07478323dc5; 2015-11-10T08:41:47-08:00)
Maven home: /usr/local/Cellar/maven/3.3.9/libexec
Java version: 1.7.0_80, vendor: Oracle Corporation
Java home: /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.7.0_80.jdk/Contents/Home/jre
Default locale: en_US, platform encoding: UTF-8
OS name: "mac os x", version: "10.11.3", arch: "x86_64", family: "mac"

I run java -version

java version "1.7.0_80"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.7.0_80-b15)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 24.80-b11, mixed mode)

I have seen the other similar question which solutions like export JAVA_HOME=<path to installed java version> but this does not work for me.

Any help or assistance would be much appreciated, thanks.

Answer 1

Configure java 1.7 for this project. As java version doesn't match with maven so please use java 1.7 It is clear that your default java version is 1.7 Go to project properties and from here set java 1.7 for your project. Hope this may help you out.