Correct the classpath of your application so that it contains a single, compatible version of ServletServerContainerFactoryBean

Question

I have a problem trying to upgrade a spring project from 4.3.2 to the latest ones. The project uses: 4.1.1.Release security and 4.3.2 Spring framework. I am trying to upgrade them to 5.3.13Release and 5.2.19.Release for spring only.

App also uses websockets:

Correct the classpath of your application so that it contains a single, compatible version of org.springframework.web.socket.server.standard.ServletServerContainerFactoryBean

The spring dependencies are:

<dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-context-support</artifactId>
        <version>${spring.version}</version>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-messaging</artifactId>
        <version>${spring.version}</version>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-core</artifactId>
        <version>${spring.version}</version>
    </dependency>
    
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-devtools</artifactId>
        <optional>true</optional>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
        <exclusions>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-logging</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-websocket</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>org.springframework.security</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-security-web</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>org.springframework.security</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-security-core</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
        </exclusions>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-tomcat</artifactId>
        <scope>provided</scope>
    </dependency>

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

    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.security</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-security-cas</artifactId>
        <version>${spring-security.version}</version>
        <exclusions>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-core</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-beans</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-expression</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-aop</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-context</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-web</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
        </exclusions>
    </dependency>


    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-websocket</artifactId>
        <version>${spring.version}</version>

        <exclusions>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>org.springframework.security</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-security-web</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
        </exclusions>

    </dependency>

    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.data</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-data-jpa</artifactId>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.security</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-security-config</artifactId>
        <version>${spring-security.version}</version>
        <exclusions>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-core</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-beans</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-expression</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-aop</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-context</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-web</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
        </exclusions>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.security</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-security-web</artifactId>
        <version>${spring-security.version}</version>
        <exclusions>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-core</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-beans</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-expression</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-aop</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-context</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
                <artifactId>spring-web</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
        </exclusions>
    </dependency>

Answer 1

First, you cannot upgrade Spring for Spring Boot as that is tied to a specific Spring major version. To upgrade Spring you would need to upgrade to a newer Spring Boot version.

Secondly, your dependencies are a mess. A lot of exclusions that aren't needed and additional dependencies that aren't needed either.

A cleaned up version

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-devtools</artifactId>
    <optional>true</optional>
</dependency>

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
    <exclusions>
        <exclusion>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-logging</artifactId>
        </exclusion>
    </exclusions>
</dependency>

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-websocket</artifactId>
</dependency>

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-tomcat</artifactId>
    <scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>

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

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-security</artifactId>
    <scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.security</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-security-cas</artifactId>
</dependency>

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-data-jpa</artifactId>
    <scope>provided</scope>
</dependency>

This is for the Spring (Boot) dependencies. Remove the spring.version and spring-security.version unless you really want to override it (which can be done within the same major version!) but you are probably better of using a new Spring Boot version (update the version of the parent).

There are probably a lot more dependencies (the spring-boot-starter-data-jpa already pulls in hibernate, so you can probably remove that explicit one as well).