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EAR deployment failure due to missing J2EE API class in AEM Forms

Last update: August 18, 2026

In Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) Forms, EAR deployment fails during an update due to a missing Java class. The application fails to load javax.management.j2ee.statistics.Stats, which is part of the J2EE management API, and the EAR does not start. To fix this issue, add the missing module dependency to the EAR file and redeploy it in AEM Forms.

Description description

Environment

  • Product: Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) Forms, v6.5
  • Instance: Development

Issue/Symptoms

The following error appears during deployment: Unexpected exception while starting an Adobe Service: java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: javax/management/j2ee/statistics/Stats

Exact logs:

Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: javax.management.j2ee.statistics.Stats
  from [ Module "deployment.adobe-livecycle-native-jboss-x86_linux64.ear.adobe-XMLForm.war"
        from Service Module Loader]
    at org.jboss.modules.ModuleClassLoader.findClass(ModuleClassLoader.java:255)
    at org.jboss.modules.ConcurrentClassLoader.performLoadClassUnchecked(ConcurrentClassLoader.java:410)
    at org.jboss.modules.ConcurrentClassLoader.performLoadClass(ConcurrentClassLoader.java:398)
    at org.jboss.modules.ConcurrentClassLoader.loadClass(ConcurrentClassLoader.java:116)
    ... 32 more

2026-01-20 07:11:32,432 ERROR [ org.jboss.msc.service.fail]
(ServerService Thread Pool -- 72) MSC000001: Failed to start service
jboss.deployment.subunit."adobe-livecycle-native-jboss-x86_linux64.ear".
"adobe-XMLForm.war".undertow-deployment:

org.jboss.msc.service.StartException in service
jboss.deployment.subunit."adobe-livecycle-native-jboss-x86_linux64.ear".
"adobe-XMLForm.war".undertow-deployment:
java.lang.RuntimeException:
java.lang.reflect.UndeclaredThrowableException:
failed creating the service instance.

Resolution resolution

To fix this issue, follow these steps:

  1. Take a backup of the adobe-livecycle-native-jboss-x86_linux.ear and its 64-bit variant from the export directory under your AEM Forms configuration manager installation.
  2. Store these backup files in a safe location outside your installation directory.
  3. Use a file extraction tool such as 7zip or another archive utility to extract the contents of adobe-livecycle-native-jboss-x86_linux.ear.
  4. Locate and open the jboss-deployment-structure.xml file within the extracted EAR structure.
  5. Add a dependency entry for javax.management.j2ee.api with slot "main" and set export=true in jboss-deployment-structure.xml.
  6. Save any changes made to jboss-deployment-structure.xml.
  7. Repackage or recompile the EAR file if required by your extraction tool.
  8. Otherwise, ensure that all changes are saved correctly within the archive.
  9. Redeploy the updated EAR file to your AEM environment.
  10. Verify that deployment completes successfully and that no NoClassDefFoundError related to javax.management.j2ee.statistics.Stats appears.

Note: If the issue persists after completing these steps, investigate Java version compatibility or additional dependencies and raise a support ticket.

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