java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: javax/inject/Inject: javax.inject.Inject when upgrading to Spring Boot 3.3.1

[raman-khrapavitski]

Hi, our team upgraded to Spring Boot 3.3.1 and are running into a compilation error with:
java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: javax/inject/Inject: javax.inject.Inject

Here is sample of project where issue can be reproduced - link

Looks like this problem similar to this closed issue: #1926

[mikereiche]

Yes. I see the issue. Add this to your dependencies :

    <dependency>
        <groupId>javax.inject</groupId>
        <artifactId>javax.inject</artifactId>
        <version>1</version>
        <scope>compile</scope>
    </dependency>

[raman-khrapavitski]

Thank you.

[mfarkan]

Hello, is there any plan to fix this issue?

[wilkinsona]

@mikereiche could you please consider reverting this change? It breaks Spring Boot's build as javax.inject:inject is a prohibited dependency. We have this restriction in place as, given Boot's Jakarta EE 9 baseline, jakarta.inject:inject should be used instead. We can exclude the dependency in Boot to get the build working again, but that feels like we'd be masking an underlying problem rather than resolving it at source.

It's also unusual that javax.inject:inject is excluded when depending on querydsl-apt and then declared again as a compile dependency. If javax.inject:inject really belongs on the compile classpath (IMO, it doesn't), the exclusion can be removed, AFAICT.

[mikereiche]

Looking...