PlayFramework project works with 'activator run' but deployed dist does not work - spring

Question

I have a playFramework2.4 project and it is working fine when I run the project using "activator run".
However, when I distribute "activator dist", and then run the application it gives an error.
It seems that I have some conflicting dependencies, but I don't know why I don't see the same issue when I run the application.
org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error
creating bean with name 'MyService': Bean instantiation via
constructor failed; nested exception is
org.springframework.beans.BeanInstantiationException: Failed to
instantiate [org.apache.cxf.jaxws22.spring.JAXWS22SpringEndpointImpl]:
Constructor threw exception; nested exception is
java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError:
org/apache/cxf/frontend/MethodDispatcher
org.springframework.beans.factory.support.ConstructorResolver.autowireConstructor(ConstructorResolver.java:275)
org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.autowireConstructor(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1139)
org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBeanInstance(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1042)
org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:504)
org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:476)
org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory$1.getObject(AbstractBeanFactory.java:303)
org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.getSingleton(DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.java:230)
org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.doGetBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:299)
org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.getBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:194)
org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory.preInstantiateSingletons(DefaultListableBeanFactory.java:755)
org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.finishBeanFactoryInitialization(AbstractApplicationContext.java:757)
org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.refresh(AbstractApplicationContext.java:480)
org.springframework.context.support.ClassPathXmlApplicationContext.(ClassPathXmlApplicationContext.java:139)
org.springframework.context.support.ClassPathXmlApplicationContext.(ClassPathXmlApplicationContext.java:83)
global.Global.onStart(Global.java:89)
play.core.j.JavaGlobalSettingsAdapter.onStart(JavaGlobalSettingsAdapter.scala:22)
play.api.GlobalPlugin.onStart(GlobalSettings.scala:271)
play.api.Play$$anonfun$start$1$$anonfun$apply$mcV$sp$1.apply(Play.scala:92)
play.api.Play$$anonfun$start$1$$anonfun$apply$mcV$sp$1.apply(Play.scala:92)
scala.collection.Iterator$class.foreach(Iterator.scala:727)
scala.collection.AbstractIterator.foreach(Iterator.scala:1157)
scala.collection.IterableLike$class.foreach(IterableLike.scala:72)
play.api.Plugins.foreach(Plugins.scala:57)
play.api.Play$$anonfun$start$1.apply$mcV$sp(Play.scala:92)
play.api.Play$$anonfun$start$1.apply(Play.scala:87)
play.api.Play$$anonfun$start$1.apply(Play.scala:87)
play.utils.Threads$.withContextClassLoader(Threads.scala:21)
play.api.Play$.start(Play.scala:87)
play.core.server.DevServerStart$$anonfun$mainDev$1$$anon$1$$anonfun$get$1$$anonfun$apply$1$$anonfun$1.apply(DevServerStart.scala:156)
play.core.server.DevServerStart$$anonfun$mainDev$1$$anon$1$$anonfun$get$1$$anonfun$apply$1$$anonfun$1.apply(DevServerStart.scala:121)
scala.Option.map(Option.scala:145)
play.core.server.DevServerStart$$anonfun$mainDev$1$$anon$1$$anonfun$get$1$$anonfun$apply$1.apply(DevServerStart.scala:121)
play.core.server.DevServerStart$$anonfun$mainDev$1$$anon$1$$anonfun$get$1$$anonfun$apply$1.apply(DevServerStart.scala:119)
scala.util.Success.flatMap(Try.scala:200)
play.core.server.DevServerStart$$anonfun$mainDev$1$$anon$1$$anonfun$get$1.apply(DevServerStart.scala:119)
play.core.server.DevServerStart$$anonfun$mainDev$1$$anon$1$$anonfun$get$1.apply(DevServerStart.scala:111)
scala.concurrent.impl.Future$PromiseCompletingRunnable.liftedTree1$1(Future.scala:24)
scala.concurrent.impl.Future$PromiseCompletingRunnable.run(Future.scala:24)
java.util.concurrent.ForkJoinTask$RunnableExecuteAction.exec(ForkJoinTask.java:1402)
java.util.concurrent.ForkJoinTask.doExec(ForkJoinTask.java:289)
java.util.concurrent.ForkJoinPool$WorkQueue.runTask(ForkJoinPool.java:1056)
java.util.concurrent.ForkJoinPool.runWorker(ForkJoinPool.java:1692)
java.util.concurrent.ForkJoinWorkerThread.run(ForkJoinWorkerThread.java:157)

Answer 1

Well it turned out that when I was calling activator dist, I was getting several other dependencies which were causing conflicts.
At the end it came down to trial and error to find all the issues.
I used sbt-dependency-graph to see where dependencies are coming from and also used the response here to exclude some conflicting dependencies.