NoSuchFieldError when trying to run a jUnit test with Spring

So far I have two tests. One uses only jUnit framework and works fine. The other one uses spring-test library and creates this exception every time I try to run it. Any ideas what may cause the problem?

Error

java.lang.NoSuchFieldError: NULL
at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.<init>(ParentRunner.java:48)
at org.junit.runners.BlockJUnit4ClassRunner.<init>(BlockJUnit4ClassRunner.java:59)
at org.springframework.test.context.junit4.SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.<init>(SpringJUnit4ClassRunner.java:104)
at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.java:39)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.java:27)
at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Constructor.java:513)
at org.junit.internal.requests.ClassRequest.getRunner(ClassRequest.java:27)
at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit4.runner.JUnit4TestReference.<init>(JUnit4TestReference.java:32)
at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit4.runner.JUnit4TestClassReference.<init>(JUnit4TestClassReference.java:25)
at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit4.runner.JUnit4TestLoader.createTest(JUnit4TestLoader.java:41)
at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit4.runner.JUnit4TestLoader.loadTests(JUnit4TestLoader.java:31)
at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.runTests(RemoteTestRunner.java:452)
at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.runTests(RemoteTestRunner.java:683)
at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.run(RemoteTestRunner.java:390)
at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.main(RemoteTestRunner.java:197)

Maven test dependencies

<dependency>
    <groupId>junit</groupId>
    <artifactId>junit</artifactId>
    <version>4.7</version>
    <scope>test</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-test</artifactId>
    <version>${org.springframework.version}</version>
    <scope>test</scope>
</dependency>

Dependency tree

[INFO] [dependency:tree {execution: default-cli}]
[INFO] fake:war:1.0-SNAPSHOT
[INFO] +- log4j:log4j:jar:1.2.16:compile
[INFO] +- org.springframework:spring-web:jar:3.0.5.RELEASE:compile
[INFO] |  +- aopalliance:aopalliance:jar:1.0:compile
[INFO] |  +- org.springframework:spring-beans:jar:3.0.5.RELEASE:compile
[INFO] |  +- org.springframe开发者_开发百科work:spring-context:jar:3.0.5.RELEASE:compile
[INFO] |  |  +- org.springframework:spring-aop:jar:3.0.5.RELEASE:compile
[INFO] |  |  +- org.springframework:spring-expression:jar:3.0.5.RELEASE:compile
[INFO] |  |  \- org.springframework:spring-asm:jar:3.0.5.RELEASE:compile
[INFO] |  \- org.springframework:spring-core:jar:3.0.5.RELEASE:compile
[INFO] |     \- commons-logging:commons-logging:jar:1.1.1:compile
[INFO] +- commons-codec:commons-codec:jar:1.4:compile
[INFO] +- org.glassfish:javax.faces:jar:2.1.3:compile
[INFO] +- org.richfaces.ui:richfaces-components-ui:jar:4.0.0.Final:compile
[INFO] |  +- org.richfaces.ui:richfaces-components-api:jar:4.0.0.Final:compile
[INFO] |  \- org.richfaces.core:richfaces-core-api:jar:4.0.0.Final:compile
[INFO] +- org.richfaces.core:richfaces-core-impl:jar:4.0.0.Final:compile
[INFO] |  +- net.sourceforge.cssparser:cssparser:jar:0.9.5:compile
[INFO] |  |  \- org.w3c.css:sac:jar:1.3:compile
[INFO] |  \- com.google.guava:guava:jar:r08:compile
[INFO] +- org.hibernate:hibernate-validator:jar:4.2.0.Final:compile
[INFO] |  \- org.slf4j:slf4j-api:jar:1.6.1:compile
[INFO] +- javax.validation:validation-api:jar:1.0.0.GA:compile
[INFO] +- javax.xml.bind:jaxb-api:jar:2.2.2:compile
[INFO] |  +- javax.xml.stream:stax-api:jar:1.0-2:compile
[INFO] |  \- javax.activation:activation:jar:1.1:compile
[INFO] +- com.sun.xml.bind:jaxb-impl:jar:2.2.2:compile
[INFO] +- javax.servlet:jstl:jar:1.1.2:compile
[INFO] +- junit:junit:jar:4.7:test
[INFO] +- org.springframework:spring-test:jar:3.0.5.RELEASE:test
[INFO] +- javax.servlet:jsp-api:jar:2.0:provided
[INFO] \- javax.servlet:servlet-api:jar:2.4:provided

Are you using an older version of Eclipse (Galileo or before)? or an older version of the junit plugin? If so, this may be the cause of the problem. ParentRunner is looking for Sorter.NULL, which was introduced in JUnit 4.5:

package org.junit.runner.manipulation;

public class Sorter implements Comparator<Description> {
    /**
     * NULL is a <code>Sorter</code> that leaves elements in an undefined order
     */
    public static Sorter NULL= new Sorter(new Comparator<Description>() {
        public int compare(Description o1, Description o2) {
            return 0;
        }});

If you don't have this bit of code, you're probably using a pre-4.5 version. On your Eclipse, do Ctrl-Shift-T and see if you have multiple versions of the Sorter class available, and if so, make sure neither of them are pre 4.5. Also, look in your project setup in your Build Path, and if there is JUnit entry (not the maven version), remove it, and try again.

EDIT: This can also be caused by a transitive dependency of Maven. Maybe one of your libraries has a dependency on a JUnit version which is pre-4.5.

I have solved this, changing to JUnit 4.10. The original exception was:

java.lang.NoSuchFieldError: NULL
    at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.<init>(ParentRunner.java:54)
    at org.junit.runners.BlockJUnit4ClassRunner.<init>(BlockJUnit4ClassRunner.java:55)
    at org.mockito.internal.runners.JUnit45AndHigherRunnerImpl$1.<init>(JUnit45AndHigherRunnerImpl.java:23)
    at org.mockito.internal.runners.JUnit45AndHigherRunnerImpl.<init>(JUnit45AndHigherRunnerImpl.java:23)
    at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.java:39)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.java:27)
    at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Constructor.java:513)
    at org.mockito.internal.runners.util.RunnerProvider.newInstance(RunnerProvider.java:39)
    at org.mockito.internal.runners.RunnerFactory.create(RunnerFactory.java:28)
    at org.mockito.runners.MockitoJUnitRunner.<init>(MockitoJUnitRunner.java:57)
    at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.java:39)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.java:27)
    at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Constructor.java:513)
    at org.junit.internal.requests.ClassRequest.buildRunner(ClassRequest.java:33)
    at org.junit.internal.requests.ClassRequest.getRunner(ClassRequest.java:28)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit4.runner.JUnit4TestReference.<init>(JUnit4TestReference.java:32)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit4.runner.JUnit4TestClassReference.<init>(JUnit4TestClassReference.java:25)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit4.runner.JUnit4TestLoader.createTest(JUnit4TestLoader.java:41)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit4.runner.JUnit4TestLoader.loadTests(JUnit4TestLoader.java:31)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.runTests(RemoteTestRunner.java:452)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.runTests(RemoteTestRunner.java:683)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.run(RemoteTestRunner.java:390)
    at org.eclipse.jdt.internal.junit.runner.RemoteTestRunner.main(RemoteTestRunner.java:197)

This looks like it's caused by the fact that you have multiple JUnit dependencies (of different versions) in your classpath. Check your classpath for that (if you're unsing maven do a mvn dependency:tree), and then get rid of the older one (again, if using maven, find out which directlly imported dependency imports in turn the older JUnit, and make an <exclusion> on that dependency for the JUnit sub-dependency in your pom.xml). Also you might want to update your actual JUnit dependency to the latest version which is (at least) 4.10.

I had exactly the same problem and I found out it was caused by a transitive dependency from org.jmock:jmock-junit4. It was sorted when I replaced it with org.jmock:jmock.

I got this error due to the same reason. but in my case i was unable to see the different version of Junits just by looking into my pom.xml or maven source tree as my project was using transitive dependencies (between projects). i,e project "A" has a dependency on project "B". so project "A" directly referring to "B"(from the workspace). so when this happens, we will not be able to identify if the different version of junit exists in the dependency. so what i did was, i closed the project "B". deleted project "A" from eclipse (not from the workspace). in the project "A" source directory, delete all the files except the pom, src and the svn supporting folder. Re-import the file back into to eclipse. This resolved the issue.