I was adding declarative transaction management support to a Spring 3.1.1 based web application when I got the error:

28-apr-2016 9.38.15 org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext listenerStart
GRAVE: Exception sending context initialized event to listener instance of class org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener
org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'myService' defined in file [...\myProject\service\MyService.class]: Initialization of bean failed; nested exception is org.springframework.aop.framework.AopConfigException: Cannot proxy target class because CGLIB2 is not available. Add CGLIB to the class path or specify proxy interfaces.
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:527)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:456)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory$1.getObject(AbstractBeanFactory.java:294)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.getSingleton(DefaultSingletonBeanRegistry.java:225)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.doGetBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:291)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory.getBean(AbstractBeanFactory.java:193)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.DefaultListableBeanFactory.preInstantiateSingletons(DefaultListableBeanFactory.java:585)
    at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.finishBeanFactoryInitialization(AbstractApplicationContext.java:913)
    at org.springframework.context.support.AbstractApplicationContext.refresh(AbstractApplicationContext.java:464)
    at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoader.configureAndRefreshWebApplicationContext(ContextLoader.java:385)
    at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoader.initWebApplicationContext(ContextLoader.java:284)
    at org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener.contextInitialized(ContextLoaderListener.java:111)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.listenerStart(StandardContext.java:3972)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.start(StandardContext.java:4467)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChildInternal(ContainerBase.java:791)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChild(ContainerBase.java:771)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.addChild(StandardHost.java:526)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployDescriptor(HostConfig.java:637)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployDescriptors(HostConfig.java:563)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.deployApps(HostConfig.java:498)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.start(HostConfig.java:1277)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.HostConfig.lifecycleEvent(HostConfig.java:321)
    at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleSupport.fireLifecycleEvent(LifecycleSupport.java:119)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.start(ContainerBase.java:1053)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.start(StandardHost.java:722)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.start(ContainerBase.java:1045)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngine.start(StandardEngine.java:443)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardService.start(StandardService.java:516)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardServer.start(StandardServer.java:710)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.start(Catalina.java:593)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.start(Bootstrap.java:289)
    at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.main(Bootstrap.java:414)
Caused by: org.springframework.aop.framework.AopConfigException: Cannot proxy target class because CGLIB2 is not available. Add CGLIB to the class path or specify proxy interfaces.
    at org.springframework.aop.framework.DefaultAopProxyFactory.createAopProxy(DefaultAopProxyFactory.java:67)
    at org.springframework.aop.framework.ProxyCreatorSupport.createAopProxy(ProxyCreatorSupport.java:104)
    at org.springframework.aop.framework.ProxyFactory.getProxy(ProxyFactory.java:112)
    at org.springframework.aop.framework.autoproxy.AbstractAutoProxyCreator.createProxy(AbstractAutoProxyCreator.java:476)
    at org.springframework.aop.framework.autoproxy.AbstractAutoProxyCreator.wrapIfNecessary(AbstractAutoProxyCreator.java:362)
    at org.springframework.aop.framework.autoproxy.AbstractAutoProxyCreator.postProcessAfterInitialization(AbstractAutoProxyCreator.java:322)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.applyBeanPostProcessorsAfterInitialization(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:407)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.initializeBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:1461)
    at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:519)
    ... 35 more

Solution

The error log was crystal clear therefore I added the version 2 of the cglib dependency to my project:

<dependency>
    <groupId>cglib</groupId>
    <artifactId>cglib</artifactId>
    <version>2.2</version>
</dependency>

The cglib dependency has itself a direct dependency to asm:

so if you aren’t using a dependency manager like Maven, or similar, you have to add to the project classpath the two libraries:

• cglib-2.2.jar
• asm-3.1.jar