error upon assigning Layout: BoxLayout can't be shared

Your problem is that you're creating a BoxLayout for a JFrame (this), but setting it as the layout for a JPanel (getContentPane()). Try:

getContentPane().setLayout(
    new BoxLayout(getContentPane(), BoxLayout.PAGE_AXIS)
);

I've also found this error making this:

JPanel panel = new JPanel(new BoxLayout(panel, BoxLayout.PAGE_AXIS));

The JPanel isn't initialized yet when passing it to the BoxLayout. So split this line like this:

JPanel panel = new JPanel();
panel.setLayout(new BoxLayout(panel, BoxLayout.PAGE_AXIS));

This will work.

I think that one important thing to highlight from the previous answers is that the BoxLayout's target (the first parameter) should be the same Container that the setLayout method is being called upon as in the following example:

JPanel XXXXXXXXX = new JPanel();
XXXXXXXXX.setLayout(new BoxLayout(XXXXXXXXX, BoxLayout.Y_AXIS));