"constructor has private access" error message

Question

I'm working in Java and have come across an incredibly odd error. I have a very basic class as follows:

public class ClassA{
   private static Logger log = Logger.getLogger(ClassA.class.getName());
   private boolean trace;

   public ClassA(){
      trace = log.isTraceEnabled();
   }

   public void doSomething(){
      //does stuff
   }
}

I can use this class just fine within my current project. However, when I build, package, and install to my local repo (using Maven, no remote artifact repo set up), other projects cannot properly use this class because they cannot instantiate it. When I try anything like:

ClassA classA = new ClassA();

I get the following compilation error:

ClassA() has private access in [package].ClassA

I've decompiled the .jar in my local repo to ensure the constructor is present and is public - it is. I've also used the -U flag to force updates and the compilation continues to fail. What could be causing this error?

Answer 1

Maybe you have some other ClassA.class file somewhere in the classpath. Check all the jars used by the project that cannot call the constructor: one of them should contain an old version of your class.