# Not able to add JAVA APM agent as dependency in spring boot project

**URL:** <https://discuss.elastic.co/t/not-able-to-add-java-apm-agent-as-dependency-in-spring-boot-project/193224>\
**Category:** APM\
**Tags:** java\
**Created:** [July 31, 2019, 10:05pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/not-able-to-add-java-apm-agent-as-dependency-in-spring-boot-project/193224 "2019-07-31T22:05:29Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![pksinghal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f19dbf/32.png) [@pksinghal](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/pksinghal)\
**Post date:** [July 31, 2019, 10:05pm UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/not-able-to-add-java-apm-agent-as-dependency-in-spring-boot-project/193224/1 "2019-07-31T22:05:29Z")

</div>

I want to do distributed tracking using Java APM.  
Initially, we use Java agent as manual setup with -javaagent flag and we get tracing data using this. Then we deploy this on our test server and its working fine.  
Now, to take this on production server, i try to add Java APM as dependency but its throwing error as follows:

```auto
[INFO] --- spring-boot-maven-plugin:2.1.6.RELEASE:run (default-cli) @ demo ---
[INFO] Attaching agents: 
2019-07-29 10:41:47.841 [Attach Listener] INFO co.elastic.apm.agent.configuration.StartupInfo - Starting Elastic APM 1.7.0 as first on Java 1.8.0_212 (Oracle Corporation) Linux 4.18.0-25-generic
2019-07-29 10:41:47.841 [Attach Listener] WARN co.elastic.apm.agent.configuration.StartupInfo - To enable all features and to increase startup times, please configure application_packages
2019-07-29 10:41:47.925 [apm-server-healthcheck] INFO co.elastic.apm.agent.report.ApmServerHealthChecker - Elastic APM server is available: { "build_date": "2019-06-20T14:39:23Z", "build_sha": "9a099b63c53eac8c55707df96193143ec66337e9", "version": "7.2.0"}
Exception in thread "restartedMain" java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:498)
at org.springframework.boot.devtools.restart.RestartLauncher.run(RestartLauncher.java:49)
Caused by: java.lang.IllegalStateException: Error during attachment using: co.elastic.apm.attach.bytebuddy.agent.ByteBuddyAgent$AttachmentProvider$Compound@867f9f9
at co.elastic.apm.attach.bytebuddy.agent.ByteBuddyAgent.install(ByteBuddyAgent.java:427)
at co.elastic.apm.attach.bytebuddy.agent.ByteBuddyAgent.attach(ByteBuddyAgent.java:298)
at co.elastic.apm.attach.bytebuddy.agent.ByteBuddyAgent.attach(ByteBuddyAgent.java:273)
at co.elastic.apm.attach.ElasticApmAttacher.attach(ElasticApmAttacher.java:84)
at co.elastic.apm.attach.ElasticApmAttacher.attach(ElasticApmAttacher.java:55)
at com.example.demo.DemoApplication.main(DemoApplication.java:11)
... 5 more
Caused by: java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:498)
at co.elastic.apm.attach.bytebuddy.agent.Attacher.install(Attacher.java:99)
at co.elastic.apm.attach.bytebuddy.agent.ByteBuddyAgent.install(ByteBuddyAgent.java:422)
... 10 more
Caused by: java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: Native Library /usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-amd64/jre/lib/amd64/libattach.so already loaded in another classloader
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadLibrary0(ClassLoader.java:1907)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadLibrary(ClassLoader.java:1845)
at java.lang.Runtime.loadLibrary0(Runtime.java:870)
at java.lang.System.loadLibrary(System.java:1122)
at sun.tools.attach.LinuxVirtualMachine.(LinuxVirtualMachine.java:342)
at sun.tools.attach.LinuxAttachProvider.attachVirtualMachine(LinuxAttachProvider.java:63)
at com.sun.tools.attach.VirtualMachine.attach(VirtualMachine.java:208)
... 16 more

```

We are using Java APM version :1.7.0  
Code in pom.xml:

co.elastic.apm  
apm-agent-attach  
1.7.0

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![felixbarny](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/felixbarny/32/27341_2.png) [@felixbarny](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/felixbarny)\
**Post date:** [August 1, 2019, 7:30am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/not-able-to-add-java-apm-agent-as-dependency-in-spring-boot-project/193224/2 "2019-08-01T07:30:46Z")

</div>

> [@pksinghal](#):
>
> Native Library /usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-amd64/jre/lib/amd64/libattach.so already loaded in another classloader

That most likely means that you are using another library which has already loaded the `libattach` native library. The JVM restricts native libraries to be loaded from only one classloader.

Are you using libraries like EhCache's size-of agent?

However, it seems you are calling `ElasticApmAttacher.attach` in the first line of your main method (DemoApplication.java:11)? At that point, no other library would have the chance to load the `libattach` library. My guess is that because of spring-boot's restarting behavior (`Exception in thread "restartedMain"`), `ElasticApmAttacher.attach` is called twice and from two different class loaders. However, I have never seen that becoming a problem before, so I'm a bit puzzled why this happens only to you. It could be related to the next question: Which JVM version are you using? I would guess 8? If you have to possibility to try with 9 or newer, please try that.

I'll add a guard so that attachment won't be performed twice, that should fix it.

EDIT: just noticed that you are using `java-8-openjdk-amd64` which confirms my theory. I have also tested with JDK 8 but couldn't reproduce. Anyway, my planned fix would help here. I'll update with the GitHub PR

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![felixbarny](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/felixbarny/32/27341_2.png) [@felixbarny](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/felixbarny)\
**Post date:** [August 1, 2019, 8:05am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/not-able-to-add-java-apm-agent-as-dependency-in-spring-boot-project/193224/3 "2019-08-01T08:05:15Z")

</div>

Here is the PR: [https://github.com/elastic/apm-agent-java/pull/764](https://github.com/elastic/apm-agent-java/pull/764)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![felixbarny](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/user_avatar/discuss.elastic.co/felixbarny/32/27341_2.png) [@felixbarny](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/felixbarny)\
**Post date:** [August 2, 2019, 9:38am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/not-able-to-add-java-apm-agent-as-dependency-in-spring-boot-project/193224/4 "2019-08-02T09:38:44Z")

</div>

In the mean time, you can do this:

```java
if (!Boolean.getBoolean("ElasticApm.attached")) {
    ElasticApmAttacher.attach();
}

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/elastic/original/3X/1/a/1ac57faf039f6b580b3f104ef42a2a89e41014de.png) [@system](https://discuss.elastic.co/u/system)\
**Post date:** [August 23, 2019, 5:38am UTC](https://discuss.elastic.co/t/not-able-to-add-java-apm-agent-as-dependency-in-spring-boot-project/193224/5 "2019-08-23T05:38:45Z")

</div>

This topic was automatically closed 20 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.