Java 1.8 ASM ClassReader failed to parse class file - probably due to a new Java class file version that isn't supported yet

As @prunge and @Pablo Lozano stated, you need Spring 4 if you want compile code to Java 8 (--target 1.8), but you can still run apps on Java 8 compiled to Java 7 if you run on Spring 3.2.X.

Check out http://docs.spring.io/spring/docs/current/spring-framework-reference/html/new-in-4.0.html

Note that the Java 8 bytecode level (-target 1.8, as required by -source 1.8) is only fully supported as of Spring Framework 4.0. In particular, Spring 3.2 based applications need to be compiled with a maximum of Java 7 as the target, even if they happen to be deployed onto a Java 8 runtime. Please upgrade to Spring 4 for Java 8 based applications.

If you encounter this error even if you compile with -target 1.7, please note that this is because of a bug in Spring Framework which causes ASM classreader to load jdk classes (java.* or javax.*), which are, of course, compiled with -target 1.8.

This, combined with the old ASM version in spring 3.2.8 and below, which does not support parsing of 1.8 class files, can also lead to this error.

More info about the issue can be found here: https://jira.spring.io/browse/SPR-11719

This should be fixed in Spring Framework version 3.2.9, which is due to be released soon.

Of course, upgrading to Spring Framework 4 will also resolve the issue, as it already contains a newer version of ASM.

However, if for some reason you can't upgrade to version 4 yet, it's good to know there's an alternative (soon).