quarkusio/quarkus · error · jakarta.enterprise.inject.CreationException

CreationException wrapping original cause from constructor i

Error message

CreationException wrapping original cause from constructor invocation failure

What it means

Reflections.newInstance() invokes a bean constructor reflectively. If the constructor itself throws, the original cause is unwrapped and rethrown: as RuntimeException, Error, or — since this is only used to instantiate beans — wrapped in a jakarta.enterprise.inject.CreationException. The message in the error record corresponds to that CreationException wrapping path.

Source

Thrown at independent-projects/arc/runtime/src/main/java/io/quarkus/arc/impl/Reflections.java:143

    public static Object newInstance(Class<?> clazz, Class<?>[] parameterTypes, Object[] args) {
        Constructor<?> constructor = findConstructor(clazz, parameterTypes);
        if (constructor != null) {
            if (!constructor.canAccess(null)) {
                constructor.setAccessible(true);
            }
            try {
                return constructor.newInstance(args);
            } catch (InvocationTargetException e) {
                Throwable cause = e.getCause();
                if (cause instanceof RuntimeException) {
                    throw (RuntimeException) cause;
                }
                if (cause instanceof Error) {
                    throw (Error) cause;
                }
                // this method is only used to instantiate beans, so throwing `CreationException` is fine
                throw new CreationException(cause);
            } catch (InstantiationException | IllegalAccessException | IllegalArgumentException e) {
                throw new RuntimeException("Cannot invoke constructor: " + clazz.getName(), e);
            }
        }
        throw new RuntimeException(
                "No " + clazz.getName() + "constructor found for params: " + Arrays.toString(parameterTypes));
    }

    public static Object readField(Class<?> clazz, String name, Object instance) {
        try {
            Field field = clazz.getDeclaredField(name);
            if (!field.canAccess(instance)) {
                field.setAccessible(true);
            }
            return field.get(instance);
        } catch (NoSuchFieldException | SecurityException | IllegalArgumentException | IllegalAccessException e) {
            throw new RuntimeException("Cannot read field value: " + clazz.getName() + "#" + name, e);
        }

View on GitHub (pinned to e1c734241f)

Solutions

1. Read getCause() of the CreationException — the root stack trace names the failing line in your constructor.
2. Keep constructors minimal: inject dependencies and defer work to @PostConstruct or first use.
3. Use constructor parameter injection instead of field injection so required values are available at construction.
4. Validate external prerequisites (config properties, connections) before/inside bean creation with clear failure messages.

Example fix

// before
@ApplicationScoped
class Repo { @Inject Config cfg; Repo() { connect(cfg.url()); } } // cfg null in constructor
// after
@ApplicationScoped
class Repo { private final Config cfg; Repo(Config cfg) { this.cfg = cfg; } 
  @PostConstruct void init() { connect(cfg.url()); } }

// pre-flight: resolve the bean early so constructor failures surface at startup
Arc.container().instance(MyBean.class).get();

try {
    MyBean bean = Arc.container().instance(MyBean.class).get();
} catch (CreationException e) {
    Throwable root = e.getCause();
    log.error("Bean construction failed — root cause:", root);
    throw new IllegalStateException("Fix constructor logic/config: " + root.getMessage(), root);
}

When it happens

Trigger: A bean constructor throws during container initialization (Arc.container().instance(...), @PostConstruct-time injection, programmatic lookup) — e.g. it throws NPE/IllegalStateException, and the container surfaces it as CreationException with the original cause.

Common situations: Constructor performs heavy logic that fails (missing config property, DB not up, null injection into constructor using field injection); missing dependency at runtime; environment misconfiguration (missing env var, wrong URL) surfacing at bean creation.

Related errors

• Not a valid type:
• Error checking value of member method ${methodName} on ${dec
• Quarkus does not support CDI Full @Specializes annotation; t
• IllegalStateException wrapping ClassNotFoundException for ge
• Unable to derive the logger name at ${injectionPoint}

AI-assisted analysis of quarkusio/quarkus@e1c734241f (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/83d026ab19e01b81. Report an issue: GitHub.