Apache CXF uses a wrong version of JAXB?

[mmatczak]

When starting Tomcat I got: java.lang.NoSuchFieldError: REFLECTION. The reason were incompatible JAXB versions taken by org.apache.cxf / cxf-rt-frontend-jaxws / 3.0.2:
com.sun.xml.bind / jaxb-impl / 2.2.10-b140310.1920
com.sun.xml.bind / jaxb-core / 2.2.10-b140310.1920

However according to http://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.apache.cxf/cxf-core/3.0.2, org.apache.cxf / cxf-rt-frontend-jaxws / 3.0.2 depends on com.sun.xml.bind / jaxb-* / 2.1.14.

After I excluded the version 2.2.10-b140310.1920 and explicitly added the 2.1.14 one of com.sun.xml.bind / jaxb-*, the problem disappeared.

I am not a Maven expert, did anyone have a similar issue?

[hohwille]

@mmatczak you did not yet commit/push anything related to this, right?
When I start tomcat within eclipse, I do not get this error. Your fix sounds OK with the exclusion but then this would actually be a bug of the CXF release 3.0.2.

The dependencies to "jaxb-:2.2.10-" come from "cxf-rt-databinding-jaxb:3.0.2".
However, also "cxf-core:3.0.2" refers to the same JAXB version.
The interesting this is actually orginated in the dependency management of the cxf-parent POM:
http://repo1.maven.org/maven2/org/apache/cxf/cxf-parent/3.0.2/cxf-parent-3.0.2.pom
See this comment:

by default, we use jaxb 2.1, but java5 profile will override to 2.2

How exactly did you get this error? With WAR file in local tomcat outside eclipse? Which tomcat version?

[hohwille]

My Eclipse m2e POM view and Maven Dependencies says that we are using jaxb 2.2.10-....
However, maven on the commandline builds a WAR file with jaxb 2.1.14.
There seems to be a maven bug in this specific scenario.
According to this your observation to fix the problem does not make any sense to me.

[hohwille]

The comment from CXF pom is also wrong - it is not java5 profile but 1.7 that triggers the 2.2 version:

<profile>
            <id>jdk17</id>
            <activation>
                <jdk>1.7</jdk>
            </activation>
            <properties>
                <cxf.jaxb.version>${cxf.jaxb22.version}</cxf.jaxb.version>
                <cxf.jaxb.impl.version>${cxf.jaxb22.impl.version}</cxf.jaxb.impl.version>
                <cxf.jaxb.xjc.version>${cxf.jaxb22.impl.version}</cxf.jaxb.xjc.version>
                <cxf.jaxb.core.version>${cxf.jaxb22.core.version}</cxf.jaxb.core.version>
            </properties>
...
        </profile>

[sobkowiak]

It must be a problem with the war packaging. Try this

mvn dependency:copy-dependencies

This command resolves the jaxb dependencies correctly

kso@Inspiron-7720:~/work/projects/oasp/devel/java/oasp4j-sample$ mvn dependency:copy-dependencies | grep jaxb
[INFO] Copying jackson-module-jaxb-annotations-2.4.2.jar to /home/kso/work/projects/oasp/devel/java/oasp4j-sample/oasp4j-example-application/target/dependency/jackson-module-jaxb-annotations-2.4.2.jar
[INFO] Copying jaxb-core-2.2.10-b140310.1920.jar to /home/kso/work/projects/oasp/devel/java/oasp4j-sample/oasp4j-example-application/target/dependency/jaxb-core-2.2.10-b140310.1920.jar
[INFO] Copying cxf-rt-databinding-jaxb-3.0.2.jar to /home/kso/work/projects/oasp/devel/java/oasp4j-sample/oasp4j-example-application/target/dependency/cxf-rt-databinding-jaxb-3.0.2.jar
[INFO] Copying jaxb-impl-2.2.10-b140310.1920.jar to /home/kso/work/projects/oasp/devel/java/oasp4j-sample/oasp4j-example-application/target/dependency/jaxb-impl-2.2.10-b140310.1920.jar

[sobkowiak]

Another interesting finding. When I build in oasp4j-sample directory, the war file includes the version 2.1.14. When building in oasp4j-sample/oasp4j-example-application the version 2.2.10-b140310.1920

[sobkowiak]

After downgrading to CXF 3.0.0 the I got the same effect -- it means the problem was not caused by any CXF upgrade

[sobkowiak]

@mmatczak when do you have this problem? I'm starting it from InteliJ and have no problem

[sobkowiak]

The problem is caused by flatten-maven-plugin

with plugin enabled:

kso@Inspiron-7720:~/work/projects/oasp/devel/java/oasp4j-sample$ mvn clean install -Dmaven.test.skip.exec=true -X | grep jaxb
[DEBUG]          org.apache.cxf:cxf-rt-databinding-jaxb:jar:3.0.2:compile
[DEBUG]             com.sun.xml.bind:jaxb-impl:jar:2.1.14:compile
[DEBUG]             com.sun.xml.bind:jaxb-core:jar:2.1.14:compile
[DEBUG]                javax.xml.bind:jaxb-api:jar:2.1:compile
[DEBUG]       com.fasterxml.jackson.module:jackson-module-jaxb-annotations:jar:2.4.2:compile
...

and

kso@Inspiron-7720:~/work/projects/oasp/devel/java/oasp4j-sample/oasp4j-example-application$ mvn clean install -Dmaven.test.skip.exec=true -X | grep jaxb
[DEBUG]          org.apache.cxf:cxf-rt-databinding-jaxb:jar:3.0.2:compile
[DEBUG]             com.sun.xml.bind:jaxb-impl:jar:2.2.10-b140310.1920:compile
[DEBUG]             com.sun.xml.bind:jaxb-core:jar:2.2.10-b140310.1920:compile
[DEBUG]       com.fasterxml.jackson.module:jackson-module-jaxb-annotations:jar:2.4.2:compile
...

with plugin disabled:

kso@Inspiron-7720:~/work/projects/oasp/devel/java/oasp4j-sample$ mvn clean install -Dmaven.test.skip.exec=true -X | grep jaxb
[DEBUG]          org.apache.cxf:cxf-rt-databinding-jaxb:jar:3.0.2:compile
[DEBUG]             com.sun.xml.bind:jaxb-impl:jar:2.2.10-b140310.1920:compile
[DEBUG]             com.sun.xml.bind:jaxb-core:jar:2.2.10-b140310.1920:compile
[DEBUG]       com.fasterxml.jackson.module:jackson-module-jaxb-annotations:jar:2.4.2:compile
...

and

kso@Inspiron-7720:~/work/projects/oasp/devel/java/oasp4j-sample/oasp4j-example-application$ mvn clean install -Dmaven.test.skip.exec=true -X | grep jaxb
[DEBUG]          org.apache.cxf:cxf-rt-databinding-jaxb:jar:3.0.2:compile
[DEBUG]             com.sun.xml.bind:jaxb-impl:jar:2.2.10-b140310.1920:compile
[DEBUG]             com.sun.xml.bind:jaxb-core:jar:2.2.10-b140310.1920:compile
[DEBUG]       com.fasterxml.jackson.module:jackson-module-jaxb-annotations:jar:2.4.2:compile
...

[sobkowiak]

I have attached build outputs with and without flatten plugin and diff of the both builds

• https://gist.github.com/sobkowiak/5b6b13ace4882aaa1356
• https://gist.github.com/sobkowiak/38d7c1cb397180b5cb32
• https://gist.github.com/sobkowiak/a8852366a96dfed13213

Probably analysis of these files helps

[sobkowiak]

I should also mention similar problem was reported in CXF community (https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/CXF-5894) but was rejected.

[sobkowiak]

To clarify the problem: when using JDK 7, the sample war should contain JAXB in version 2.2.10-* (required by CXF). 2.1.14 should be used when using JDK 6 not having JAXB 2.2. APIs.

[sobkowiak]

@hohwille as I know you should known very good internals of the flatten plugin. Could you check why it makes problems with building the war file?

[hohwille]

@sobkowiak thanks for investigation and figuring this out. To fix this issue I disabled flatten here.
However, I still have to find the actual root of the problem. Therefore I will file an issue for flatten-maven-plugin.

[sobkowiak]

Removing the plugin from oasp4j-sample-server haven't solved this problem because it is still enabled in the root pom (https://github.com/oasp/oasp4j/blob/develop/pom.xml#L38-L62). The plugin should be romoved from the root pom.

[hohwille]

There are two issues here:

1. http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/MOJO-2041 - this is an easy one for me and I can fix that soon. Until that we decoupled our BOM from the parent.
2. Some interference of the maven reactor is causing a wrong dependency version resolution for jaxb-*. If flatten is active and I install the modules and then the samples separately in two builds everything works fine so it is not a general bug in flatten plugin.

So far we have some workarounds to build the WAR correctly and still being able to create proper releases.

[sobkowiak]

I could reproduce this problem. It appears when from any reason the war file contains both versions of JAXB. So it's not CXF problem but problem with building war file and flatten plugin.

[hohwille]

As we now have new versions of flatten available, we shall give it another try.
Current state is in-acceptable if you both develop OASP and an OASP-based app on the same machine with a shared local maven repo as parent POMs with dev versions cause chaos.

[hohwille]

I have fixed the bug tonight. We can update flatten-maven-plugin to 1.0.0 as soon as it is released. Then we can close this issue.

[hohwille]

Done.