Bamboo fails to start - java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError

Platform Notice: Data Center Only - This article only applies to Atlassian apps on the Data Center platform.

Note that this KB was created for the Data Center version of the product. Data Center KBs for non-Data-Center-specific features may also work for Server versions of the product, however they have not been tested. Support for Server* products ended on February 15th 2024. If you are running a Server product, you can visit the Atlassian Server end of support announcement to review your migration options.

*Except Fisheye and Crucible

Symptoms

Bamboo fails to boot and the following error appears in the logs:

Caused by: org.springframework.beans.BeanInstantiationException: Could not instantiate bean class [com.atlassian.crowd.integration.atlassianuser.CrowdAuthenticator]: Constructor threw exception; nested exception is java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/codehaus/xfire/handler/Handler at org.springframework.beans.BeanUtils.instantiateClass(BeanUtils.java:100) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.SimpleInstantiationStrategy.instantiate(SimpleInstantiationStrategy.java:87) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.ConstructorResolver.autowireConstructor(ConstructorResolver.java:186) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.autowireConstructor(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:795) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBeanInstance(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:713) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:386) ... 128 more

Cause

There are jar libraries copied from Crowd to Bamboo as per this document, but Bamboo doesn't need those files as the latest versions (4.x and after) already contain the needed libraries.

Resolution

Make sure that you have the correct versions of Crowd .jar files in the BAMBOO_INSTALL/webapp/WEB-INF/lib directory. You can extract the data from the downloaded bamboo installer archive and compare the Crowd jar file versions with the ones located in the BAMBOO_INSTALL/webapp/WEB-INF/lib directory. In case there is a discrepancy, replace the incorrect jar files with the correct ones and restart your Bamboo server.

Updated on September 25, 2025

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