ThemeSource and Theme classes no longer exist in Version 7.0.0

[mavsoftware]

I am receiving the following error on my application after picking up version 7.0.0 of org.springframework.spring-context

{"ts":"2025-11-14T13:05:14.445+0000","class":"org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication","level":"ERROR","evt":{"msg":"Application run failed"},"thread":"main","exception":{"class":"java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError","message":"org/springframework/ui/context/ThemeSource","stacktrace":"java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/springframework/ui/context/ThemeSource\n\tat

Looks like ThemeSource and Theme classes no longer exists in 7.0.0

[ 6.2.13]# jar -tvf spring-context-6.2.13.jar|grep Theme
409 Thu Nov 13 08:45:02 GMT 2025 org/springframework/ui/context/ThemeSource.class
341 Thu Nov 13 08:45:02 GMT 2025 org/springframework/ui/context/Theme.class
5618 Thu Nov 13 08:45:02 GMT 2025 org/springframework/ui/context/support/ResourceBundleThemeSource.class
1156 Thu Nov 13 08:45:02 GMT 2025 org/springframework/ui/context/support/SimpleTheme.class
1345 Thu Nov 13 08:45:02 GMT 2025 org/springframework/ui/context/support/DelegatingThemeSource.class
611 Thu Nov 13 08:45:02 GMT 2025 org/springframework/ui/context/HierarchicalThemeSource.class

[ 7.0.0]# jar -tvf spring-context-7.0.0.jar|grep Theme

[bclozel]

This is expected. Theme support was deprecated in 6.0 and removed in 7.0 as a result.

[mavsoftware]

Thanks for the reply. I did glance at the 7.0.0 release notes and it was not noted it was removed. Should the removal be included there?

[bclozel]

Good idea, I added it to the list of removals here.

[Nthalk]

In my projects, I've never used, configured, or cared about ThemeSource. However, my spring boot project will no longer load due to it missing. Is there a simple guide to remove any auto-configuration of ThemeSource?

Ah, I see, spring-boot-starter-web 3.5.7 pulls in spring-webmvc 6.12, but asking for spring-framework at 7.0.0 causes this dependency issue.

[bclozel]

@Nthalk Spring Framework 7.0 is a new major version and as such the only opportunity we get to apply changes that break backwards compatibility.

Framework 7.0 is only meant to be used with Boot 4.0 and the combination you are mentioning is not supported and cannot work.