SpringBoot fails with compatability problems - spring

Question

This is my pom.xml file:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"
xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
<properties>
<project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
<maven.compiler.source>1.8</maven.compiler.source>
<maven.compiler.target>1.8</maven.compiler.target>
<start-class>com.phoneBook.Main</start-class>
</properties>
<groupId>SpringProject</groupId>
<artifactId>SpringProject</artifactId>
<version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-jar-plugin</artifactId>
<version>3.0.2</version>
<configuration>
<archive>
<manifest>
<mainClass>com.phoneBook.Main</mainClass>
</manifest>
</archive>
</configuration>
</plugin>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
<version>1.5.10.RELEASE</version>
<executions>
<execution>
<goals>
<goal>repackage</goal>
</goals>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
<configuration>
<source>1.8</source>
<target>1.8</target>
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
<parent>
<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
<version>1.5.10.RELEASE</version>
</parent>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.logging.log4j</groupId>
<artifactId>log4j-core</artifactId>
<version>2.10.0</version>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
</project>
When I try to load a simple SpringBoot project it fails with the following error:
java.lang.NoSuchMethodError: org.springframework.util.ObjectUtils.unwrapOptional(Ljava/lang/Object;)Ljava/lang/Object;
at org.springframework.validation.DataBinder.<init>(DataBinder.java:179)
at org.springframework.boot.bind.RelaxedDataBinder.<init>(RelaxedDataBinder.java:83)
at org.springframework.boot.bind.PropertiesConfigurationFactory.doBindPropertiesToTarget(PropertiesConfigurationFactory.java:253)
at org.springframework.boot.bind.PropertiesConfigurationFactory.bindPropertiesToTarget(PropertiesConfigurationFactory.java:240)
at org.springframework.boot.context.config.ConfigFileApplicationListener.bindToSpringApplication(ConfigFileApplicationListener.java:241)
at org.springframework.boot.context.config.ConfigFileApplicationListener.postProcessEnvironment(ConfigFileApplicationListener.java:197)
at org.springframework.boot.context.config.ConfigFileApplicationListener.onApplicationEnvironmentPreparedEvent(ConfigFileApplicationListener.java:182)
at org.springframework.boot.context.config.ConfigFileApplicationListener.onApplicationEvent(ConfigFileApplicationListener.java:168)
at org.springframework.context.event.SimpleApplicationEventMulticaster.doInvokeListener(SimpleApplicationEventMulticaster.java:172)
at org.springframework.context.event.SimpleApplicationEventMulticaster.invokeListener(SimpleApplicationEventMulticaster.java:165)
at org.springframework.context.event.SimpleApplicationEventMulticaster.multicastEvent(SimpleApplicationEventMulticaster.java:139)
at org.springframework.context.event.SimpleApplicationEventMulticaster.multicastEvent(SimpleApplicationEventMulticaster.java:127)
at org.springframework.boot.context.event.EventPublishingRunListener.environmentPrepared(EventPublishingRunListener.java:74)
at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplicationRunListeners.environmentPrepared(SpringApplicationRunListeners.java:54)
at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.prepareEnvironment(SpringApplication.java:325)
at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.run(SpringApplication.java:296)
at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.run(SpringApplication.java:1118)
at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.run(SpringApplication.java:1107)
at com.phoneBook.Main.main(Main.java:30)
I understood from reading posts here that it's an issue of compatability with dependencies. I was trying to use different versions without success.
It's not a duplicate of: Spring Boot Application Unable to start?
I added the dependencies shown there and I still got the same error.

Answer 1

By the error we can see there is a version mismatch between spring-context and spring-core :
178: public DataBinder(#Nullable Object target, String objectName) {
179: this.target = ObjectUtils.unwrapOptional(target);
180: this.objectName = objectName;
181: }
To check which version of each is used run :
mvn dependency:tree | grep 'spring-context\|spring-core'
You can go further and check the actual packaged version, it should be the same as shown by maven :
jar tf SpringProject-1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar | grep 'spring-context\|spring-core'
If it shows :
BOOT-INF/lib/spring-context-4.3.14.RELEASE.jar
BOOT-INF/lib/spring-core-4.3.14.RELEASE.jar
and the error still persists, please post a complete source sample and steps to reproduce it.