NoClassDefFound com/google/protobuf/RuntimeVersion$RuntimeDomain

[harti2006]

The latest release v0.11.0, bumped the dependency on Protobuf from 3.25 to 4.27, which causes some compatibility issues in my project that uses the Authzed SDK.

Protobuf introduced some breaking changes in version 4.26.

My project still needs to work with Protobuf 3.25, because it has dependencies on other libraries, that have been compiled with this version of Protobuf. It turns out, that it is not possible to use two libraries, one compiled with Protobuf v3.25 and the other with v4.26 in the same project. Doing so results in runtime errors like:

NoClassDefFound com/google/protobuf/RuntimeVersion$RuntimeDomain

Protobuf version 4.28 tries to bring back compatibility with version 3.25, but I cannot yet confirm this

Binary compatibility shims for GeneratedMessageV3, SingleFieldBuilderV3, RepeatedFieldBuilderV3, and their nested classes to restore binary compatibility with <=v3.x.x generated code built against v3.x.x prior to v4.26.0 breaking release.

Could you please either revert the Protobuf upgrade back to 3.25? Alternatively, moving forward to 4.28 might also solve the issue, but I have to test that first.

[tstirrat15]

If you have the means, would you be willing to test 4.28? I'd rather move the library forward if possible.

Alternatively, can you pin to 0.10.0? The only change with 0.11.0 is bumping the protobuf version - there shouldn't be big functionality changes.

What you're describing is something that I've seen in other clients as well - it seems that the protobuf project assumes that rather than consuming libraries that have been generated with protobuf, you would consume the proto directly and do your own generation process. If that dependency conflict becomes too sticky, that may be a way to proceed.

[harti2006]

Hi @tstirrat15. I tested version 4.28 today and it looks very promising:

• updated our internal gRPC library to 4.28
• ran it alongside the authzed in version 0.10.0 and then in version 0.11.0

Both tests runs were successful and didn't show any compatibility issues. So I would suggest to move forward with 4.28 (will do it for our internal libraries now anyway)

[tstirrat15]

Sounds good! I'll get a PR together for that.

[tstirrat15]

This is going out in v0.11.1. When this action completes it should be available on maven.

[harti2006]

Wonderful. v0.11.1 works fine for me.
Thanks a lot for providing this fix so quickly ☺️

[tstirrat15]

Sure thing!

[amihaiemil]

@tstirrat15 @harti2006 I am unfortunately still getting the same error, even though I am using v1.0.0. Looking inside the pom.xml of v1.0.0, I see it depends on:

<dependency>
    <groupId>io.grpc</groupId>
    <artifactId>grpc-protobuf</artifactId>
    <version>1.66.0</version>
    <scope>runtime</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>com.google.protobuf</groupId>
    <artifactId>protobuf-java</artifactId>
    <version>4.28.2</version>
    <scope>runtime</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>io.grpc</groupId>
    <artifactId>grpc-stub</artifactId>
    <version>1.66.0</version>
    <scope>runtime</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>io.grpc</groupId>
    <artifactId>grpc-netty-shaded</artifactId>
    <version>1.66.0</version>
    <scope>runtime</scope>
</dependency>

According to your discussion, protobuf-java 4.28.2 should fix the problem, but it doesn't? Any ideas? :D

My mvn dependency:tree:

[INFO] +- com.fasterxml.jackson.core:jackson-core:jar:2.15.4:provided
[INFO] +- com.fasterxml.jackson.core:jackson-databind:jar:2.15.4:provided
[INFO] |  \- com.fasterxml.jackson.core:jackson-annotations:jar:2.15.4:provided
[INFO] +- com.authzed.api:authzed:jar:v1.0.0:compile
[INFO] |  \- io.grpc:grpc-netty-shaded:jar:1.66.0:runtime
[INFO] |     +- io.grpc:grpc-util:jar:1.66.0:runtime
[INFO] |     |  \- org.codehaus.mojo:animal-sniffer-annotations:jar:1.24:runtime
[INFO] |     +- io.grpc:grpc-core:jar:1.66.0:runtime
[INFO] |     |  +- com.google.code.gson:gson:jar:2.11.0:runtime
[INFO] |     |  +- com.google.android:annotations:jar:4.1.1.4:runtime
[INFO] |     |  \- io.grpc:grpc-context:jar:1.66.0:runtime
[INFO] |     \- io.perfmark:perfmark-api:jar:0.27.0:runtime
[INFO] +- org.thymeleaf:thymeleaf:jar:3.1.2.RELEASE:compile
[INFO] |  +- ognl:ognl:jar:3.3.4:compile
[INFO] |  |  \- org.javassist:javassist:jar:3.29.0-GA:compile
[INFO] |  +- org.attoparser:attoparser:jar:2.0.7.RELEASE:compile
[INFO] |  +- org.unbescape:unbescape:jar:1.1.6.RELEASE:compile
[INFO] |  \- org.slf4j:slf4j-api:jar:2.0.7:compile
[INFO] +- com.google.protobuf:protobuf-java:jar:4.28.2:compile
[INFO] +- io.grpc:grpc-protobuf:jar:1.68.0:compile
[INFO] |  +- io.grpc:grpc-api:jar:1.68.0:compile
[INFO] |  +- com.google.code.findbugs:jsr305:jar:3.0.2:compile
[INFO] |  +- com.google.api.grpc:proto-google-common-protos:jar:2.41.0:compile
[INFO] |  +- com.google.guava:guava:jar:33.2.1-android:compile
[INFO] |  |  +- com.google.guava:failureaccess:jar:1.0.2:compile
[INFO] |  |  +- com.google.guava:listenablefuture:jar:9999.0-empty-to-avoid-conflict-with-guava:compile
[INFO] |  |  +- org.checkerframework:checker-qual:jar:3.42.0:compile
[INFO] |  |  \- com.google.j2objc:j2objc-annotations:jar:3.0.0:compile
[INFO] |  \- io.grpc:grpc-protobuf-lite:jar:1.68.0:runtime
[INFO] +- io.grpc:grpc-stub:jar:1.68.0:compile
[INFO] |  \- com.google.errorprone:error_prone_annotations:jar:2.28.0:compile

I also tried with v1.1.0, same outcome.

[tstirrat15]

@amihaiemil sanity check: have you tried clearing your maven cache? I remember running into dep issues like that that were solved by clearing the cache and re-downloading.

[harti2006]

Not sure if it's a big help, but you can make the dependency tree more verbose like this:

mvn dependency:tree -Dverbose=true

It will show you all transitive dependencies, conflicts and which versions have been picked in the end.

@amihaiemil I can also see that different versions of grpc are used in your project (1.68.0 and 1.66.0). Not sure if this is a problem at all, but you might be able to get better control by using BOMs:

<dependencyManagement>
    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>io.grpc</groupId>
            <artifactId>grpc-bom</artifactId>
            <version>1.68.1</version>
            <type>pom</type>
            <scope>import</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.google.protobuf</groupId>
            <artifactId>protobuf-bom</artifactId>
            <version>4.28.3</version>
            <type>pom</type>
            <scope>import</scope>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
</dependencyManagement>

[amihaiemil]

@tstirrat15 @harti2006 I cleaned the maven cache, I also checked the dependency versions (tried multiple versions from each), but still the same behaviour.

Could it maybe have to do with the fact that I am under MacOs (Sequoia v15.0.1)?

[tstirrat15]

@amihaiemil that shouldn't make a difference I don't think.

[amihaiemil]

@tstirrat15 Other colleagues under Windows say it works for them. I'm still looking for a solution :(

[harti2006]

@amihaiemil If it already works for your colleagues, then this might be an issue with your current system. What you could do:

• clean up your local maven repo to force re-downloading dependencies:
  rm -rf ~/.m2/repository/
• then do a fresh installation of your project
  mvn clean install
• post the full content of mvn dependency:tree -Dverbose=true here
• post the exact error with stack trace here