SBT fails with `String.class is broken` - scala

Question

sbt fails with a cryptic error on issuing any command (compile, assembly, clean or any other).
$ sbt --version
error: error while loading String, class file '/modules/java.base/java/lang/String.class' is broken
(class java.lang.NullPointerException/null)
I am on a machine running macOS, and sbt was installed via homebrew. I have tried upgrading to the latest versions of sbt (1.3.10), but the error still persists.

Answer 1

The issue is documented on the SBT Download page.
Homebrew maintainers have added a dependency to JDK 13 because they want to use more brew dependencies (brew#50649). This causes sbt to use JDK 13 even when java available on PATH is JDK 8 or 11. To prevent sbt from running on JDK 13, install jEnv or switch to using SDKMAN.
I was able to resolve the problem by using JDK 8 via jEnv.

Answer 2

Since sbt documents JDK 8 and 11 as compatible versions
We recommend AdoptOpenJDK JDK 8 or AdoptOpenJDK JDK 11
try controlling which JDK is used by sbt via -java-home setting which can be configured system-wide via sbtopts run configuration
/usr/local/etc/sbtopts
or per-project basis via
<project-root>/.sbtopts
For example, to configure JDK used by sbt in current project, try setting in .sbtopts
-java-home /Users/picard/.sdkman/candidates/java/current

Answer 3

This is what solved my problem on my Mac.
brew uninstall sbt
Install sdkman
curl -s "https://get.sdkman.io" | bash
source "$HOME/.sdkman/bin/sdkman-init.sh"
Install sbt via sdk
sdk install sbt

Answer 4

I had the same issue recently. What worked for me is to install SDKMAN(https://sdkman.io/)
$ curl -s "https://get.sdkman.io" | bash
...
$ source "$HOME/.sdkman/bin/sdkman-init.sh"
...
After installation, I wanted to see what versions of Java I can install. So I simply run this command to list all the available versions of Java
sdk list java
Choose the version you want to install (recommend installing either 8 or 11 as mentioned above) and simply run the command with the identifier that specifies your version from the list
sdk install java 11.0.3.hs-adpt
After installation, it set the Java 11 to default on my system. I then ran the sbt command again and it worked.

Answer 5

If you are using SDKMAN then in some cases certain versions of Java (i.e. JDK) from different vendor might help.
E.g. I was using Amazon Correto JDK8 (version 8.332.08.1-amzn) and it could not properly build my sbt project in IntellIJ IDEA, so I've switched to using Zulu's JDK8 (version 8.0.332-zulu) as default java version.
Hope this helps and good luck. :)