spring-projects/spring-boot · error · IllegalStateException

Unable to load layers XSD

Error message

Unable to load layers XSD

What it means

Thrown by CustomLayersProvider.loadSchema as an IllegalStateException when SchemaFactory.newSchema(getClass().getResource("layers.xsd")) throws a SAXException. The XSD is bundled inside the plugin jar itself (org/springframework/boot/maven/layers.xsd), so under normal operation this never fires. It indicates a corrupted plugin installation, a classloading issue, or a build that has shaded/modified the plugin jar so the resource is missing or malformed.

Source

Thrown at build-plugin/spring-boot-maven-plugin/src/main/java/org/springframework/boot/maven/CustomLayersProvider.java:82

	private void validate(Document document) {
		Schema schema = loadSchema();
		try {
			Validator validator = schema.newValidator();
			validator.validate(new DOMSource(document));
		}
		catch (SAXException | IOException ex) {
			throw new IllegalStateException("Invalid layers.xml configuration", ex);
		}
	}

	private Schema loadSchema() {
		try {
			SchemaFactory factory = SchemaFactory.newInstance(XMLConstants.W3C_XML_SCHEMA_NS_URI);
			return factory.newSchema(getClass().getResource("layers.xsd"));
		}
		catch (SAXException ex) {
			throw new IllegalStateException("Unable to load layers XSD");
		}
	}

	private List<ContentSelector<String>> getApplicationSelectors(Element root) {
		return getSelectors(root, "application", (element) -> getSelector(element, ApplicationContentFilter::new));
	}

	private List<ContentSelector<Library>> getLibrarySelectors(Element root) {
		return getSelectors(root, "dependencies", (element) -> getLibrarySelector(element, LibraryContentFilter::new));
	}

	private List<Layer> getLayers(Element root) {
		Element layerOrder = getChildElement(root, "layerOrder");
		if (layerOrder == null) {
			return Collections.emptyList();
		}
		return getChildNodeTextContent(layerOrder, "layer").stream().map(Layer::new).toList();
	}

View on GitHub (pinned to 5b2dbdbb8b)

Solutions

1. Delete the cached spring-boot-maven-plugin jar from ~/.m2/repository/org/springframework/boot/spring-boot-maven-plugin/ and re-resolve.
2. Force re-download with mvn -U clean package.
3. Verify the plugin jar integrity: unzip -l ~/.m2/.../spring-boot-maven-plugin-<ver>.jar | grep layers.xsd.
4. Pin the plugin to a known-good version if a specific version's jar is corrupt.

Example fix

// remove corrupt cached plugin and re-resolve
rm -rf ~/.m2/repository/org/springframework/boot/spring-boot-maven-plugin
mvn -U package

// Verify the plugin jar in the local repo is intact before building
import java.io.File;
import java.util.jar.JarFile;

boolean pluginJarHasXsd(File pluginJar) throws java.io.IOException {
    try (JarFile jf = new JarFile(pluginJar)) {
        return jf.getEntry("org/springframework/boot/maven/layers.xsd") != null;
    }
}

When it happens

Trigger: The plugin jar on disk is truncated or corrupted; a custom classloader/shaded jar has stripped or relocated layers.xsd; an OSS Nexus/Artifactory proxy served a partially downloaded plugin jar; running with a forked plugin that resolves a broken plugin dependency.

Common situations: A corrupted download of spring-boot-maven-plugin cached in ~/.m2/repository; a corporate mirror with a partially-synced artifact; an unusual shading/relocation of the plugin.

Related errors

• Invalid layers.xml configuration
• Failed to load layers configuration with name '%s': '%s' not
• Failed to process custom layers configuration {}
• Multiple '{}' nodes found
• Could not build classpath

AI-assisted analysis of spring-projects/spring-boot@5b2dbdbb8b (2026-08-04). Data as JSON: /data/errors/a7e6016eef8a98c3.json. Report an issue: GitHub.