How to Fix java.lang.VerifyError: Expecting a stack map frame at branch target 14 in method at offset JDK 7 [Solved]

Hello guys, today, we'll take a look at the not-so-common error for Java applications. If you have been working in Java for a couple of years then you might have seen this dreaded "java.lang.VerifyError: Expecting a stack map frame at branch target 14 in method at offset JDK 7" error in your application log or in Eclipse, particularly if you are running your Java application in Java 7. The main cause of this error, "java.lang.VerifyError: Expecting a stack map frame at branch target ... in the method ... at offset 0 error comes when you have some library, JAR file which is only compatible with Java 1.6 or below and you are running your program in JDK 1.7.

Explanation

Java 7 introduced a stricter verification and changed the class format a bit to contain a stack map, used to verify that code is correct. The exception you see means that some method doesn't have a valid stack map.

Java version or bytecode instrumentation could both be blame. Usually, this means that a library that the application uses generates invalid bytecode that doesn't pass the stricter verification. So nothing else than reporting it as a bug to the library can be done by the developer.

As a workaround, you can also add -noverify to the JVM arguments in order to disable verification. 

In Java 7 it was also possible to use -XX:-UseSplitVerifier to use the less strict verification method of the previous version which can handle these missing stack map frames, but that option is also removed in Java 8.

Solution

If you are running in Java 7 then there are two solutions:

1) Just use JDK 1.6, it will not do strict bytecode verification as JDK 7 but hey we have been running it for a long time, so no issue.

2) If you don't want to downgrade on Java 1.6 and are rather happy running with Java 1.7 then add -XX:-UseSplitVerifier into your list of JVM arguments which you are passing to your Java program. Did you notice the "-" sign in front of UseSplitVerifier? This is actually telling JVM to don't use that bytecode verifier.

If you are using Eclipse, you can add this JVM argument as follows :

Windows, Preferences, Java, Installed JREs, Edit, Default VM arguments

If you are new to Eclipse and want to learn more about it, you can also check out Eclipse Tutorial For Beginners: Learn Java IDE in 10 Steps, another free Eclipse course on Udemy. It's also a good course to start learning Eclipse from scratch.

See stack trace here :

java.lang.VerifyError: Expecting a stackmap frame at branch target 14 in method 
gwtone.server.TestServlet.doGet(Ljavax/servlet/http/HttpServletRequest;Ljavax/servlet
/http/HttpServletResponse;)V at offset 0
    at java.lang.Class.getDeclaredConstructors0(Native Method)
    at java.lang.Class.privateGetDeclaredConstructors(Unknown Source)
    at java.lang.Class.getConstructor0(Unknown Source)
    at java.lang.Class.newInstance0(Unknown Source)
    at java.lang.Class.newInstance(Unknown Source)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.Holder.newInstance(Holder.java:153)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.ServletHolder.initServlet(ServletHolder.java:428)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.ServletHolder.getServlet(ServletHolder.java:339)
    at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.ServletHolder.handle(ServletHolder.java:487)

That's all about how to fix java.lang.VerifyError in Java, particularly the "java.lang.VerifyError: Expecting a stack map frame at branch target 14 in method at offset JDK 7" error.

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