How to Fix Zipkin webMvcMetricsFilter Bean Creation Error in Spring Boot

Apr 23, 2026

Problem

When I started my Spring Boot application with Zipkin server enabled, I got this error:

Error creating bean with name 'webMvcMetricsFilter' defined in class path resource
[org/springframework/boot/actuate/autoconfigure/web/servlet/WebMvcMetricsAutoConfiguration.class]

Unsatisfied dependency expressed through method 'webMvcMetricsFilter' parameter 0;
nested exception is org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException:
Error creating bean with name 'prometheusMeterRegistry' defined in class path resource
[io/micrometer/prometheus/PrometheusMeterRegistryAutoConfiguration.class]

Bean instantiation via factory method failed;
nested exception is org.springframework.beans.BeanInstantiationException:
Failed to instantiate [io.micrometer.prometheus.PrometheusMeterRegistry]:
factory method 'prometheusMeterRegistry' threw exception;
nested exception is java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: zipkin2/internal/Buffer$Writer

The root cause is NoClassDefFoundError: zipkin2/internal/Buffer$Writer, which seems unrelated to the metrics filter at first glance.

Environment

Spring Boot 2.2.4
Spring Cloud Hoxton.SR1
Zipkin 2.19.9
Java 8+

What happened?

I was setting up a standalone Zipkin server using Spring Boot. My main class looked like this:

@EnableZipkinServer
@SpringBootApplication
public class ZipkinServerApplication {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SpringApplication.run(ZipkinServerApplication.class, args);
    }
}

And my pom.xml dependencies:

<dependencies>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>io.zipkin.java</groupId>
        <artifactId>zipkin-server</artifactId>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>io.zipkin.java</groupId>
        <artifactId>zipkin-autoconfigure-ui</artifactId>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

When I ran mvn spring-boot:run, the application failed to start with the bean creation error.

How to solve it?

The solution is to exclude Tomcat from spring-boot-starter-web. Zipkin server uses its own embedded server called Armeria, not Tomcat. Having both servers causes conflicts during bean initialization.

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
    <exclusions>
        <exclusion>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-tomcat</artifactId>
        </exclusion>
    </exclusions>
</dependency>

Now run again:

mvn spring-boot:run

The application starts successfully and Zipkin UI is accessible at http://localhost:9411.

The reason

I think the key reason is:

Two servers conflict: spring-boot-starter-web brings in Tomcat by default. @EnableZipkinServer creates a Zipkin server that uses Armeria. Both servers try to initialize, causing bean conflicts.
Metrics registry depends on wrong server context: The webMvcMetricsFilter from Spring Boot Actuator expects a standard Spring Boot web context. But Zipkin’s server configuration creates a different context, causing the NoClassDefFoundError for Zipkin’s internal classes.
Zipkin server is standalone by design: Zipkin server is meant to run as a standalone tracing collector, not as part of a regular Spring Boot web application. It needs its own server implementation for specific performance and protocol requirements.

Summary

In this post, I showed how to fix the webMvcMetricsFilter bean creation error when setting up Zipkin server with Spring Boot. The key point is to exclude spring-boot-starter-tomcat from the web starter dependency because Zipkin uses Armeria, not Tomcat.

Final Words + More Resources

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Here are also the most important links from this article along with some further resources that will help you in this scope:

👨‍💻 Stack Overflow: Error creating bean with name 'webMvcMetricsFilter'

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