What does a "Cannot find symbol" or "Cannot resolve symbol" error mean?

Question

Please explain the following about "Cannot find symbol", "Cannot resolve symbol" or "Symbol not found" errors (in Java):

• What do they mean?
• What things can cause them?
• How does the programmer go about fixing them?

This question is designed to seed a comprehensive Q&A about these common compilation errors in Java.

Prebendary

Answer 1

0. Is there any difference between these errors?

Not really. "Cannot find symbol", "Cannot resolve symbol" and "Symbol not found" all mean the same thing. (Different Java compilers are written by different people, and different people use different phraseology to say the same thing.)

1. What does a "Cannot find symbol" error mean?

Firstly, it is a compilation error¹. It means that either there is a problem in your Java source code, or there is a problem in the way that you are compiling it.

Your Java source code consists of the following things:

• Keywords: like class, while, and so on.
• Literals: like true, false, 42, 'X' and "Hi mum!".
• Operators and other non-alphanumeric tokens: like +, =, {, and so on.
• Identifiers: like Reader, i, toString, processEquibalancedElephants, and so on.
• Comments and whitespace.

A "Cannot find symbol" error is about the identifiers. When your code is compiled, the compiler needs to work out what each and every identifier in your code means.

A "Cannot find symbol" error means that the compiler cannot do this. Your code appears to be referring to something that the compiler doesn't understand.

2. What can cause a "Cannot find symbol" error?

As a first order, there is only one cause. The compiler looked in all of the places where the identifier should be defined, and it couldn't find the definition. This could be caused by a number of things. The common ones are as follows:

• For identifiers in general:

  • Perhaps you spelled the name incorrectly; i.e., StringBiulder instead of StringBuilder. Java cannot and will not attempt to compensate for bad spelling or typing errors.
  • Perhaps you got the case wrong; i.e. stringBuilder instead of StringBuilder. All Java identifiers are case sensitive.
  • Perhaps you used underscores inappropriately; i.e., mystring and my_string are different. (If you stick to the Java style rules, you will be largely protected from this mistake...)
  • Perhaps you are trying to use something that was declared "somewhere else"; i.e. in a different context to where you have implicitly told the compiler to look. (A different class? A different scope? A different package? A different code-base?)

• For identifiers that should refer to variables:

  • Perhaps you forgot to declare the variable.
  • Perhaps the variable declaration is out of scope at the point you tried to use it. (See example below)

• For identifiers that should be method or field names:

  • Perhaps you are trying to refer to an inherited method or field that wasn't declared in the parent / ancestor classes or interfaces.

  • Perhaps you are trying to refer to a method or field that does not exist (i.e., has not been declared) in the type you are using; e.g., "rope".push()².

  • Perhaps you are trying to use a method as a field, or vice versa; e.g. "rope".length or someArray.length().

  • Perhaps you are mistakenly operating on an array rather than array element; e.g.,

        String strings[] = ...
        if (strings.charAt(3)) { ... }
        // Maybe that should be 'strings[0].charAt(3)'
    

• For identifiers that should be class names:

  • Perhaps you forgot to import the class.

  • Perhaps you used "star" imports, but the class isn't defined in any of the packages that you imported.

  • Perhaps you forgot a new as in:

        String s = String();  // Should be 'new String()'
    

  • Perhaps you are trying to import or otherwise use a class that has been declared in the default package; i.e., the one where classes with no package statements go.

    Hint: learn about packages. You should only use the default package for simple applications that consist of one class ... or at a stretch, one Java source file.

• For cases where type or instance doesn't appear to have the member (e.g., method or field) you were expecting it to have:

  • Perhaps you have declared a nested class or a generic parameter that shadows the type you were meaning to use.
  • Perhaps you are shadowing a static or instance variable.
  • Perhaps you imported the wrong type; e.g., due to IDE completion or auto-correction may have suggested java.awt.List rather than java.util.List.
  • Perhaps you are using (compiling against) the wrong version of an API.
  • Perhaps you forgot to cast your object to an appropriate subclass.
  • Perhaps you have declared the variable's type to be a supertype of the one with the member you are looking for.

The problem is often a combination of the above. For example, maybe you "star" imported java.io.* and then tried to use the Files class ... which is in java.nio not java.io. Or maybe you meant to write File ... which is a class in java.io.

---

Here is an example of how incorrect variable scoping can lead to a "Cannot find symbol" error:

List<String> strings = ...

for (int i = 0; i < strings.size(); i++) {
    if (strings.get(i).equalsIgnoreCase("fnord")) {
        break;
    }
}
if (i < strings.size()) {
    ...
}

This will give a "Cannot find symbol" error for i in the if statement. Though we previously declared i, that declaration is only in scope for the for statement and its body. The reference to i in the if statement cannot see that declaration of i. It is out of scope.

(An appropriate correction here might be to move the if statement inside the loop, or to declare i before the start of the loop.)

---

Here is an example that causes puzzlement where a typo leads to a seemingly inexplicable "Cannot find symbol" error:

for (int i = 0; i < 100; i++); {
    System.out.println("i is " + i);
}

This will give you a compilation error in the println call saying that i cannot be found. But (I hear you say) I did declare it!

The problem is the sneaky semicolon ( ; ) before the {. The Java language syntax defines a semicolon in that context to be an empty statement. The empty statement then becomes the body of the for loop. So that code actually means this:

for (int i = 0; i < 100; i++);

// The previous and following are separate statements!!

{
    System.out.println("i is " + i);
}

The { ... } block is NOT the body of the for loop, and therefore the previous declaration of i in the for statement is out of scope in the block.

---

Here is another example of "Cannot find symbol" error that is caused by a typo.

int tmp = ...
int res = tmp(a + b);

Despite the previous declaration, the tmp in the tmp(...) expression is erroneous. The compiler will look for a method called tmp, and won't find one. The previously declared tmp is in the namespace for variables, not the namespace for methods.

In the example I came across, the programmer had actually left out an operator. What he meant to write was this:

int res = tmp * (a + b);

---

There is another reason why the compiler might not find a symbol if you are compiling from the command line. You might simply have forgotten to compile or recompile some other class. For example, if you have classes Foo and Bar where Foo uses Bar. If you have never compiled Bar and you run javac Foo.java, you are liable to find that the compiler can't find the symbol Bar. The simple answer is to compile Foo and Bar together; e.g., javac Foo.java Bar.java or javac *.java. Or better still use a Java build tool; e.g., Ant, Maven, Gradle and so on.

There are some other more obscure causes too ... which I will deal with below.

3. How do I fix these errors?

Generally speaking, you start out by figuring out what caused the compilation error.

• Look at the line in the file indicated by the compilation error message.
• Identify which symbol that the error message is talking about.
• Figure out why the compiler is saying that it cannot find the symbol; see above!

Then you think about what your code is supposed to be saying. Then finally you work out what correction you need to make to your source code to do what you want.

Note that not every "correction" is correct. Consider this:

for (int i = 1; i < 10; i++) {
    for (j = 1; j < 10; j++) {
        ...
    }
}

Suppose that the compiler says "Cannot find symbol" for j. There are many ways I could "fix" that:

• I could change the inner for to for (int j = 1; j < 10; j++) - probably correct.
• I could add a declaration for j before the inner for loop, or the outer for loop - possibly correct.
• I could change j to i in the inner for loop - probably wrong!
• and so on.

The point is that you need to understand what your code is trying to do in order to find the right fix.

4. Obscure causes

Here are a couple of cases where the "Cannot find symbol" is seemingly inexplicable ... until you look closer.

1. Incorrect dependencies: If you are using an IDE or a build tool that manages the build path and project dependencies, you may have made a mistake with the dependencies; e.g., left out a dependency, or selected the wrong version. If you are using a build tool (Ant, Maven, Gradle, etc), check the project's build file. If you are using an IDE, check the project's build path configuration.

2. Cannot find symbol 'var': You are probably trying to compile source code that uses local variable type inference (i.e. a var declaration) with an older compiler or older --source level. The var was introduced in Java 10. Check your JDK version and your build files, and (if this occurs in an IDE), the IDE settings.

3. You are not compiling / recompiling: It sometimes happens that new Java programmers don't understand how the Java tool chain works, or haven't implemented a repeatable "build process"; e.g. using an IDE, Ant, Maven, Gradle and so on. In such a situation, the programmer can end up chasing his tail looking for an illusory error that is actually caused by not recompiling the code properly, and the like.

   Another example of this is when you use (Java 9+) java SomeClass.java to compile and run a class. If the class depends on another class that you haven't compiled (or recompiled), you are liable to get "Cannot resolve symbol" errors referring to the 2nd class. The other source file(s) are not automatically compiled. The java command's new "compile and run" mode is not designed for running programs with multiple source code files.

4. An earlier build problem: It is possible that an earlier build failed in a way that gave a JAR file with missing classes. Such a failure would typically be noticed if you were using a build tool. However if you are getting JAR files from someone else, you are dependent on them building properly, and noticing errors. If you suspect this, use tar -tvf to list the contents of the suspect JAR file.

5. IDE issues: People have reported cases where their IDE gets confused and the compiler in the IDE cannot find a class that exists ... or the reverse situation.

   • This could happen if the IDE has been configured with the wrong JDK version.

   • This could happen if the IDE's caches get out of sync with the file system. There are IDE specific ways to fix that.

   • This could be an IDE bug. For instance @Joel Costigliola described a scenario where Eclipse did not handle a Maven "test" tree correctly: see this answer. (Apparently that particular bug was been fixed a long time ago.)

6. Android issues: When you are programming for Android, and you have "Cannot find symbol" errors related to R, be aware that the R symbols are defined by the context.xml file. Check that your context.xml file is correct and in the correct place, and that the corresponding R class file has been generated / compiled. Note that the Java symbols are case sensitive, so the corresponding XML ids are be case sensitive too.

   Other symbol errors on Android are likely to be due to previously mention reasons; e.g., missing or incorrect dependencies, incorrect package names, method or fields that don't exist in a particular API version, spelling / typing errors, and so on.

7. Hiding system classes: I've seen cases where the compiler complains that substring is an unknown symbol in something like the following

   String s = ...
   String s1 = s.substring(1);
   

   It turned out that the programmer had created their own version of String and that his version of the class didn't define a substring methods. I've seen people do this with System, Scanner and other classes.

   Lesson: Don't define your own classes with the same names as common library classes!

   The problem can also be solved by using the fully qualified names. For example, in the example above, the programmer could have written:

   java.lang.String s = ...
   java.lang.String s1 = s.substring(1);
   

8. Homoglyphs: If you use UTF-8 encoding for your source files, it is possible to have identifiers that look the same, but are in fact different because they contain homoglyphs. See this page for more information.

   You can avoid this by restricting yourself to ASCII or Latin-1 as the source file encoding, and using Java \uxxxx escapes for other characters.

---

^{1 - If, perchance, you do see this in a runtime exception or error message, then either you have configured your IDE to run code with compilation errors, or your application is generating and compiling code .. at runtime.
2 - The three basic principles of civil engineering: water doesn't flow uphill, a plank is stronger on its side, and you can't push on a rope.}

Prebendary

I had another situation where this compilation error occured while eclipse didn't see the problem: Two classes with dependencies defined in the respectively other class. In my case I had an enum, implementing an interface, defined in a class where I foolishly already used the enum. – Factor

Somewhat similarly to the comment above, when I compile and run my program from Eclipse it works no problem. Compiling it from the console raises a bunch of these "Cannot find symbol" errors often related to last element in an import. I have no idea what is causing this as there is nothing wrong in the code really. – Gesualdo

Another problem is that IDEs may "interpret" other errors into this category. For instance println in System.out.println if placed at class level under standard compiler would give us <identifier> expected (demo) but in IntelliJ we will see Cannot resolve symbol 'println' (demo). – Fortuna

Wow. I would call that a compiler bug. – Prebendary

(It appears that Intellij has taken something that is syntactically invalid (a statement where a declaration is required), and then attempted to resolve the symbols. But the compiler is sufficiently messed up that it is unable to resolve a symbol that should resolve ... and would resolve if the statement was in the correct context. And that is resulting a misleading compilation error message.) – Prebendary

This doesn't help at aall – Phosgene

@Phosgene - Well ... read another answer then. You have 17 more to chose from. Or look at the details of your problem again and reread the above focusing on a specific area. What kind of symbol can't the compiler resolve? A variable? A method? A class? A package? Are you using an IDE? Android? Etcetera. (Hint: how can we help you if you don't tell us what your problem is? Try asking a new question ... with some actual details in it.) – Prebendary

Answer 2

You'll also get this error if you forget a new:

String s = String();

versus

String s = new String();

because the call without the new keyword will try and look for a (local) method called String without arguments - and that method signature is likely not defined.

Imhoff

after like an hour of scanning my code, I came across this answer - thank you god! – Shrove

Answer 3

SOLVED

Using IntelliJ

Select Build->Rebuild Project will solve it

Fixation

That very much depends and usually it doesn't. – Facient

This worked for me. I couldn't figure it out because the packages/directories were all correct. Seems it needed to be rebuilt to incorporate the changes. – Thirteenth

Answer 4

One more example of 'Variable is out of scope'

As I've seen that kind of questions a few times already, maybe one more example to what's illegal even if it might feel okay.

Consider this code:

if(somethingIsTrue()) {
  String message = "Everything is fine";
} else {
  String message = "We have an error";
}
System.out.println(message);

That's invalid code. Because neither of the variables named message is visible outside of their respective scope - which would be the surrounding brackets {} in this case.

You might say: "But a variable named message is defined either way - so message is defined after the if".

But you'd be wrong.

Java has no free() or delete operators, so it has to rely on tracking variable scope to find out when variables are no longer used (together with references to these variables of cause).

It's especially bad if you thought you did something good. I've seen this kind of error after "optimizing" code like this:

if(somethingIsTrue()) {
  String message = "Everything is fine";
  System.out.println(message);
} else {
  String message = "We have an error";
  System.out.println(message);
}

"Oh, there's duplicated code, let's pull that common line out" -> and there it it.

The most common way to deal with this kind of scope-trouble would be to pre-assign the else-values to the variable names in the outside scope and then reassign in if:

String message = "We have an error";
if(somethingIsTrue()) {
  message = "Everything is fine";
} 
System.out.println(message);

Petiolule

"Java has no free() or delete operators, so it has to rely on tracking variable scope to find out when variables are no longer used (together with references to these variables of cause)." - While true, this not relevant. C and C++ have free / delete operators respectively, and yet the equivalent C / C++ code to your examples would be illegal. C and C++ blocks limit the scope of variables just like in Java. In fact, this is true for most "block structured" languages. – Prebendary

The better solution for code that assigns a different value on every branch is to use a blank final variable declaration. – Anorexia

Answer 5

One way to get this error in Eclipse:

1. Define a class A in src/test/java.
2. Define another class B in src/main/java that uses class A.

Result: Eclipse will compile the code, but Maven will give "Cannot find symbol".

Underlying cause: Eclipse is using a combined build path for the main and test trees. Unfortunately, it does not support using different build paths for different parts of an Eclipse project, which is what Maven requires.

Solution:

1. Don't define your dependencies that way; i.e., don't make this mistake.
2. Regularly build your codebase using Maven so that you pick up this mistake early. One way to do that is to use a CI server.

Hydrotherapy

What is the solution to this one? – Electrophotography

whatever you use in src/main/java needs to be defined in src/main/java or in any compile/runtime dependencies (not test dependencies). – Hydrotherapy

Answer 6

"Can not find " means that, the compiler who can't find an appropriate variable, method, class, etc. If you got that error massage, first of all, you want to find the code line where you get the error massage.

And then you will able to find which variable, method or class have not been defined before using it. After confirmation, initialize that variable, method or class, so it can be used for a later require. Consider the following example.

I'll create a demo class and print a name...

class demo {
    public static void main(String a[]) {
        System.out.print(name);
    }
}

Now look at the result..

That error says, "variable name can not find". Defining and initializing value for 'name' variable can be abolished that error. Actually like this,

class demo {
    public static void main(String a[]) {

        String name = "smith";

        System.out.print(name);
    }
}

Now look at the new output...

Ok, we successfully solved that error. At the same time, if you could get "can not find method " or "can not find class" something, at first, define a class or method and after use that.

Guinna

Please review Why not upload images of code/errors when asking a question? (e.g., "Images should only be used to illustrate problems that can't be made clear in any other way, such as to provide screenshots of a user interface.") and do the right thing (it covers answers as well). Thanks in advance. – Sayyid

Answer 7

If you're getting this error in the build somewhere else, while your IDE says everything is perfectly fine, then check that you are using the same Java versions in both places.

For example, Java 7 and Java 8 have different APIs, so calling a non-existent API in an older Java version would cause this error.

Swanhilda

Answer 8

There can be various scenarios as people have mentioned in previous answers. Here are a couple of things which have helped me resolve this.

1. If you are using IntelliJ IDEA

   Menu File → Invalidate Caches/Restart

or

2. The class being referenced was in another project and that dependency was not added to the Gradle build file of my project. So I added the dependency using

   compile project(':anotherProject')

   And it worked.

Lehet

Answer 9

If the Eclipse Java build path is mapped to 7, 8 and in the Project pom.xml Maven properties java.version is mentioned higher Java version (9, 10, 11, etc.) than 7,8 you need to update in the pom.xml file.

In Eclipse, if Java is mapped to Java version 11 and in pom.xml it is mapped to Java version 8. Update Eclipse support to Java 11 by going through the below steps in the Eclipse IDE

Menu Help → Install New Software → paste the following link http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/updates/4.9-P-builds at Work With

or

Add (Popup window will open) ->

Name: Java 11 support Location: http://download.eclipse.org/eclipse/updates/4.9-P-builds

Then update the Java version in Maven properties of pom.xml file as below:

<java.version>11</java.version>
<maven.compiler.source>${java.version}</maven.compiler.source>
<maven.compiler.target>${java.version}</maven.compiler.target>

Finally, do right click on the project Debug as -> Maven clean, Maven build steps.

Pentane

This is close to incomprehensible (are you using machine translation?). Can you fix it? (But *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** without *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** "Edit:", "Update:", or similar - the answer should appear as if it was written today.) – Sayyid

Answer 10

I too was getting this error (for which I googled and I was directed to this page).

Problem: I was calling a static method defined in the class of a project A from a class defined in another project B.

I was getting the following error:

error: cannot find symbol

Solution: I resolved this by first building the project where the method is defined and then the project where the method was being called from.

Lour

Yes, this can happen if you decide to move some reusable function from your current package to your common utils package, for example, but then you forget to compile your common package before calling the function from your current package. – Vanward

Answer 11

You compiled your code using maven compile, used maven test to run it, and it worked fine. Now if you changed something in your code and then without compiling you are running it, you will get this error.

Solution: Again compile it and then run test. For me it worked this way.

Troutman

This explanation doesn't make sense. A "Cannot find symbol" error is a compilation error. It will not happen while >>running<< tests. It might occur while >>compiling<< tests though. – Prebendary

Also, I'm puzzled you you managed to compile the tests without compiling the code under test. Unless they are in separate projects for some reason. If you run mvn test, that should recompile everything in the project... before running the tests. If you run mvn surefile:test, that shouldn't recompile anything. – Prebendary

Answer 12

For hints, look closer at the class name that throws an error and the line number, example:

Compilation failure
[ERROR] \applications\xxxxx.java:[44,30] error: cannot find symbol

One other cause is an unsupported method for a Java version, say JDK 7 vs. 8. Check your %JAVA_HOME% environment variable.

Bal

This just says the same thing that other answers say. – Prebendary

Answer 13

In my case, I had to perform the below operations:

1. Move the context.xml file from directory src/java/package to the resource directory (IntelliJ IDE)
2. Clean the target directory.

Spahi

Moving file without caring about references could cause this error. I already met this. Just Reset on Git and carefully Move again, the error solve. – Cynthla

Context.xml has nothing to do with compilation errors. – Caruncle

Answer 14

We got the error in a Java project that is set up as a Gradle multi-project build. It turned out that one of the sub-projects was missing the Gradle Java Library plugin. This prevented the sub-project's class files from being visible to other projects in the build.

After adding the Java library plugin to the sub-project's build.gradle in the following way, the error went away:

plugins {
    ...
    id 'java-library'
}

Quirinal

Answer 15

Re: 4.4: An earlier build problem in Stephen C's excellent answer:

I encountered this scenario when developing an OSGi application. I had a Java project A that was a dependency of B. When building B, there was the error:

Compilation failure: org.company.projectA.bar.xyz does not exist

But in Eclipse, there wasn't any compile problem at all.

Investigation

When I looked in A.jar, there were classes for org.company.projectA.foo.abc, but none for org.company.projectA.bar.xyz.

The reason for the missing classes, was that in the A/pom.xml, there was an entry to export the relevant packages.

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.felix</groupId>
    <artifactId>maven-bundle-plugin</artifactId>
    ...
    <configuration>
        <instructions>
            ....
            <Export-Package>org.company.projectA.foo.*</Export-Package>
        </instructions>
    </configuration>
</plugin>

Solution

Add the missing packages like so:

<Export-Package>org.company.projectA.foo.*,org.company.projectA.bar.*</Export-Package>

And rebuild everything.

Now the A.jar includes all the expected classes, and everything compiles.

Ripieno

Answer 16

I was getting the below error

java: cannot find symbol
  symbol: class __

To fix this, I tried enabling Lombok, restarted IntelliJ IDEA, etc., but the below worked for me.

IntelliJ IDEA → Preferences → Compiler → Shared Build process VM Options and set it to

-Djps.track.ap.dependencies=false

Then run

mvn clean install

Mythological

Answer 17

Optional.isEmpty()

I was happily using !Optional.isEmpty() in my IDE, and it works fine, as I was compiling/running my project with >= JDK11. Now, when I use Gradle on the command line (running on JDK 8), I got the nasty error in the compile task.

Why?

From the documentation (pay attention to the last line):

boolean java.util.Optional.isEmpty()

If a value is not present, returns true, otherwise false.
Returns:true if a value is not present, otherwise false
Since:11

Bores

Answer 18

I solved this error like this... The craziness of Android. I had the package name as "adapter" and then I refactored the name to the adapter with an "a" instead of "A" and solved the error.

Fourchette

That's not Android specific, and it is not craziness. Java identifiers are case sensitive. And the case of the class name / package name should match the case of the corresponding source files, directories and .class files. If you mess around with this, then the tool chain is liable to not find the relevant files. – Prebendary

Thanks for this clarification Stephen C – Fourchette