ERROR Stopping due to error (org.apache.kafka.connect.cli.ConnectDistributed) java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: io/debezium/util/IoUtil - debezium

Question

Objective
I am trying to connect to my Oracle Database(12c) from Kafka Connect(ideally in distributed mode) using the Debezium connector(1.2.4.Final). The Kafka version i am using is 2.13-2.6.0.
Command used
As per mentioned here, i am running this command:
C:\Users\username\Downloads\kafka>bin\windows\connect-distributed.bat config\connect-distributed.properties
Error
The error i am getting is:
ERROR Stopping due to error
(org.apache.kafka.connect.cli.ConnectDistributed)
java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: io/debezium/util/IoUtil
at io.debezium.connector.oracle.Module.(Module.java:19)
at io.debezium.connector.oracle.OracleConnector.version(OracleConnector.java:23)
at org.apache.kafka.connect.runtime.isolation.DelegatingClassLoader.versionFor(DelegatingClassLoader.java:390)
at org.apache.kafka.connect.runtime.isolation.DelegatingClassLoader.versionFor(DelegatingClassLoader.java:395)
at org.apache.kafka.connect.runtime.isolation.DelegatingClassLoader.getPluginDesc(DelegatingClassLoader.java:365)
at org.apache.kafka.connect.runtime.isolation.DelegatingClassLoader.scanPluginPath(DelegatingClassLoader.java:337)
at org.apache.kafka.connect.runtime.isolation.DelegatingClassLoader.scanUrlsAndAddPlugins(DelegatingClassLoader.java:268)
at org.apache.kafka.connect.runtime.isolation.DelegatingClassLoader.registerPlugin(DelegatingClassLoader.java:260)
at org.apache.kafka.connect.runtime.isolation.DelegatingClassLoader.initPluginLoader(DelegatingClassLoader.java:229)
at org.apache.kafka.connect.runtime.isolation.DelegatingClassLoader.initLoaders(DelegatingClassLoader.java:206)
at org.apache.kafka.connect.runtime.isolation.Plugins.(Plugins.java:61)
at org.apache.kafka.connect.cli.ConnectDistributed.startConnect(ConnectDistributed.java:91)
at org.apache.kafka.connect.cli.ConnectDistributed.main(ConnectDistributed.java:78)
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: io.debezium.util.IoUtil
at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:382)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:418)
at org.apache.kafka.connect.runtime.isolation.PluginClassLoader.loadClass(PluginClassLoader.java:104)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:351)
... 13 more
Settings
In my connect-distributed.properties, i have this:
plugin.path=C:/Users/username/Downloads/kafka/libs/debezium
And inside the debezium folder(following Gunnar's recommendation from the comment in this question), i have these jars:
I also added the plugin path in %PATH% as follows:
echo %PATH% | findstr debezium
XXX;C:\Users\username\Downloads\kafka\libs\debezium;
Help
Any help would be greatly appreciated, as i hope to replace my database polling with this debezium connector which seems a better approach. Thanks!

Answer 1

The solution from Gunnar here works! (His explanation is there too if you want to check it out.)
plugin.path=C:\\Users\\username\\Downloads\\kafka\\libs
and that also works:
plugin.path=C:/Users/username/Downloads/kafka/libs
plugin.path=C:\Users\username\Downloads\kafka\libs
plugin.path=/Users/username/Downloads/kafka/libs
The mistake is: plugin.path should be up to libs and not libs/debezium