Ektorp dependency crashing Spring boot application

I`m making a web application. The back-end is in Java, and I use Spring. For the database I use CouchDb and I want to use Ektorp, but here comes the problem. It crashes when I add the Ektorp dependency. It compiles, but when I try to run, I get the errors from below.

Exception in thread "main" java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Cannot instantiate interface org.springframework.context.ApplicationListener : org.springframework.boot.context.logging.ClasspathLoggingApplicationListener
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.createSpringFactoriesInstances(SpringApplication.java:450)
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.getSpringFactoriesInstances(SpringApplication.java:429)
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.getSpringFactoriesInstances(SpringApplication.java:420)
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.<init>(SpringApplication.java:270)
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.<init>(SpringApplication.java:249)
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.run(SpringApplication.java:1260)
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.run(SpringApplication.java:1248)
    at QEasyApplication.main(QEasyApplication.java:18)
Caused by: java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/springframework/context/event/GenericApplicationListener
    at java.base/java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass1(Native Method)
    at java.base/java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass(ClassLoader.java:1016)
    at java.base/java.security.SecureClassLoader.defineClass(SecureClassLoader.java:174)
    at java.base/jdk.internal.loader.BuiltinClassLoader.defineClass(BuiltinClassLoader.java:802)
    at java.base/jdk.internal.loader.BuiltinClassLoader.findClassOnClassPathOrNull(BuiltinClassLoader.java:700)
    at java.base/jdk.internal.loader.BuiltinClassLoader.loadClassOrNull(BuiltinClassLoader.java:623)
    at java.base/jdk.internal.loader.BuiltinClassLoader.loadClass(BuiltinClassLoader.java:581)
    at java.base/jdk.internal.loader.ClassLoaders$AppClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoaders.java:178)
    at java.base/java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:521)
    at java.base/java.lang.Class.forName0(Native Method)
    at java.base/java.lang.Class.forName(Class.java:398)
    at org.springframework.util.ClassUtils.forName(ClassUtils.java:275)
    at org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication.createSpringFactoriesInstances(SpringApplication.java:442)
    ... 7 more
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.springframework.context.event.GenericApplicationListener
    at java.base/jdk.internal.loader.BuiltinClassLoader.loadClass(BuiltinClassLoader.java:583)
    at java.base/jdk.internal.loader.ClassLoaders$AppClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoaders.java:178)
    at java.base/java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:521)
    ... 20 more

Process finished with exit code 1

I tried changing to different versions of Ektorp or spring boot but nothing worked. Down below is my Maven pom file. What could be the problem?

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"
         xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

    <properties>
        <java.version>1.8</java.version>
    </properties>
    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-dependencies</artifactId>
            <version>2.1.3.RELEASE</version>
            <type>pom</type>
            <scope>provided</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
            <version>2.1.3.RELEASE</version>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-thymeleaf</artifactId>
            <version>2.1.3.RELEASE</version>
        </dependency>


        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-logging</artifactId>
            <version>2.1.3.RELEASE</version>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.ektorp</groupId>
            <artifactId>org.ektorp.spring</artifactId>
            <version>1.4.4</version>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
</project>

Well it seems that org.springframework.context.event.GenericApplicationListener is not on your classpath. It resides in spring-context.

You state, in other words your pom.xml states, that someone should provide spring-boot-dependencies for you? I think you confused the provided and the import Maven scopes:

• provided – "you expect the JDK or a container to provide the dependency at runtime"
• import – "It indicates the dependency to be replaced with the effective list of dependencies in the specified POM's section."

So two possibilities:

1. switch the runtime scope of spring-boot-dependencies to import
2. even better, let Spring Boot manage as many dependencies as possible for you and put the following parent pom in place, to leverage the full potential of Spring Boot:

    <parent>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
        <version>2.1.3.RELEASE</version>
    </parent>