After upgrading from Spring Boot 2.7.13 to 2.7.14, all tests using WebApplicationContextRunner started failing.

To Reproduce 1. Create a pom.xml:

<?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 https://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

    <parent>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
        <version>2.7.14</version>
        <relativePath/> <!-- lookup parent from repository -->
    </parent>

    <groupId>com.example</groupId>
    <artifactId>demo</artifactId>
    <version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <name>demo</name>
    <description>Demo project for Spring Boot</description>

    <properties>
        <java.version>11</java.version>
    </properties>

    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>

    <build>
        <plugins>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            </plugin>
        </plugins>
    </build>

</project>
  1. Create an application:
package com.example.demo;

import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;

@SpringBootApplication
public class DemoApplication {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(DemoApplication.class, args);
    }
}
  1. Create a classic integration test:
package com.example.demo;

import org.junit.jupiter.api.Test;
import org.springframework.boot.test.context.SpringBootTest;

@SpringBootTest
class DemoApplicationTest {

    @Test
    void contextLoads() {
    }
}
  1. Create a test using WebApplicationContextRunner:
package com.example.demo;

import static org.assertj.core.api.Assertions.assertThat;

import org.junit.jupiter.api.Test;
import org.springframework.boot.test.context.runner.WebApplicationContextRunner;
import org.springframework.boot.web.servlet.context.AnnotationConfigServletWebServerApplicationContext;

class DemoApplicationUsingWebApplicationContextRunnerTest {

    private final WebApplicationContextRunner contextRunner = new WebApplicationContextRunner(AnnotationConfigServletWebServerApplicationContext::new);

    @Test
    void contextLoads() {
        contextRunner
                .withUserConfiguration(DemoApplication.class)
                .run(applicationContext -> assertThat(applicationContext).hasNotFailed());
    }
}

Expected behaviour Both tests passed.

Actual behaviour - Using Spring Boot 2.7.13, both tests passed. - Using Spring Boot 2.7.14, DemoApplicationUsingWebApplicationContextRunnerTest is failing with the following stack trace

java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: javax/servlet/ServletContext
        at com.example.demo.DemoApplicationUsingWebApplicationContextRunnerTest.<init>(DemoApplicationUsingWebApplicationContextRunnerTest.java:11)
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: javax.servlet.ServletContext
        at com.example.demo.DemoApplicationUsingWebApplicationContextRunnerTest.<init>(DemoApplicationUsingWebApplicationContextRunnerTest.java:11)

Comment From: wilkinsona

I suspect you have a corrupted dependency in your local Maven cache that has made javax.servlet.ServletContext unavailable. Please try purging Maven's local cache.

Comment From: zeljko-mirovic

Purging the local maven cache solved the issue. I appreciate your help, and sorry for bothering you with something like this.

Comment From: wilkinsona

No problem. Thanks for letting us know.