Spring-Maven Project: Unsupported major.minor version 52.0 stubborn error

Question

I am downgrading a small application from Tomcat 8/JRE 1.8 to Tomcat 7/JRE 1.7 for infrastructure reasons. Nevertheless, when I set up JRE to 1.7 and compiler compliance level to 1.7, I got this error in Tomcat 7 start-up. I've tried everything in this question, without success.

Compiler compliance level: 1.7
Targeted runtimes: Apache Tomcat v7.0
JRE System Library: jdk1.7.0_80

Maven POM snippet:

  <properties>
    <maven.compiler.source>1.7</maven.compiler.source>
    <maven.compiler.target>1.7</maven.compiler.target>
  </properties>

Any help would be worthy. Thanks.

java.util.concurrent.ExecutionException: org.apache.catalina.LifecycleException: Failed to start component [StandardEngine[Catalina].StandardHost[localhost].StandardContext[/compoT7]]
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.report(FutureTask.java:122)
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.get(FutureTask.java:188)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.startInternal(ContainerBase.java:1119)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.startInternal(StandardHost.java:819)
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:145)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$StartChild.call(ContainerBase.java:1571)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase$StartChild.call(ContainerBase.java:1561)
    at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:262)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1145)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:615)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)
Caused by: org.apache.catalina.LifecycleException: Failed to start component [StandardEngine[Catalina].StandardHost[localhost].StandardContext[/compoT7]]
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:162)
    ... 6 more
Caused by: java.lang.UnsupportedClassVersionError: org/springframework/web/SpringServletContainerInitializer : Unsupported major.minor version 52.0 (unable to load class org.springframework.web.SpringServletContainerInitializer)
    at org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoaderBase.findClassInternal(WebappClassLoaderBase.java:3209)
    at org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoaderBase.findClass(WebappClassLoaderBase.java:1373)
    at org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoaderBase.loadClass(WebappClassLoaderBase.java:1861)
    at org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoaderBase.loadClass(WebappClassLoaderBase.java:1735)
    at java.lang.Class.forName0(Native Method)
    at java.lang.Class.forName(Class.java:278)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.WebappServiceLoader.loadServices(WebappServiceLoader.java:197)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.WebappServiceLoader.load(WebappServiceLoader.java:158)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.processServletContainerInitializers(ContextConfig.java:1579)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.webConfig(ContextConfig.java:1280)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.configureStart(ContextConfig.java:888)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.lifecycleEvent(ContextConfig.java:388)
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleSupport.fireLifecycleEvent(LifecycleSupport.java:117)
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.fireLifecycleEvent(LifecycleBase.java:90)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.startInternal(StandardContext.java:5522)
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleBase.start(LifecycleBase.java:145)
    ... 6 more

Everywhere I look, the answers turns around changing JRE and Compiler Compliance level. Nevertheless, it seems to be something different and trickier. — Alex, Mar 22 '18 at 20:51
So Spring 5.X is JDK 8 requirement which is your problem. See https://projects.spring.io/spring-framework/ If you like to run with JDK 7 you have to downgrade to Spring 4.X.... — khmarbaise, Mar 22 '18 at 21:44

score 2 · Answer 1 · edited May 09 '18 at 20:43

2

Caused by: java.lang.UnsupportedClassVersionError: org/springframework/web/SpringServletContainerInitializer : Unsupported major.minor version 52.0 (unable to load class org.springframework.web.SpringServletContainerInitializer)

It appears that the version of Spring you are using was compiled on Java 8. Look at your Spring version and check the JRE level. You may have to downgrade Spring.

edited May 09 '18 at 20:43

MWiesner

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answered Mar 22 '18 at 21:01

Steve11235

2,849
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18

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 22 '18 at 21:01

It is simple:

org.springframework.web.SpringServletContainerInitializer class from Spring dependency was compiled with 1.8 JDK. Only one thing you can do is downgrade Spring dependencies to version compiled with 1.7 JDK.

If you have them defined in one of your pom.xml just downgrade their version.

If it is a transitive dependency downgrade main depenendency which uses lesser Spring version

or exclude 1.8 compiled dependencies and add lesser version explicitly.

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 22 '18 at 21:06

You can use the Enforcer plugin to identify which libraries are compiled with the wrong version. It will tell you exactly which jar(s) and what version they are compiled for.

<plugin>
  <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
  <artifactId>maven-enforcer-plugin</artifactId>
  <version>specifyLatestVersionHere</version>
  <executions>
    <execution>
      <id>jdk-check</id>
      <phase>validate</phase>
      <goals>
        <goal>enforce</goal>
      </goals>
      <configuration>
        <rules>
          <enforceBytecodeVersion>
            <maxJdkVersion>1.7</maxJdkVersion>
          </enforceBytecodeVersion>
        </rules>
        <fail>true</fail>
      </configuration>
    </execution>
  </executions>
  <dependencies>
    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.codehaus.mojo</groupId>
      <artifactId>extra-enforcer-rules</artifactId>
      <version>1.0-beta-6</version>
    </dependency>
  </dependencies>
</plugin>

Spring-Maven Project: Unsupported major.minor version 52.0 stubborn error

3 Answers3