Exception in thread “main” cucumber.runtime.CucumberException: No backends were found

Question

I am developing my Selenium-JVM framework with Cucumber and while running my first feature got below error.

Please help.

How did I launch the feature -

1. Right click on feature file
2. Select Run As -> Cucumber Feature

Immediate Exception -

Exception in thread "main" cucumber.runtime.CucumberException: No backends were found. Please make sure you have a backend module on your CLASSPATH.
    at cucumber.runtime.Runtime.<init>(Runtime.java:78)
    at cucumber.runtime.Runtime.<init>(Runtime.java:67)
    at cucumber.runtime.Runtime.<init>(Runtime.java:63)
    at cucumber.api.cli.Main.run(Main.java:24)
    at cucumber.api.cli.Main.main(Main.java:16)

What I have in code -

Launcher.java -

package cucumber;

import org.junit.runner.RunWith;

import cucumber.api.CucumberOptions;
import cucumber.api.junit.Cucumber;

@RunWith(Cucumber.class)
@CucumberOptions(format={"pretty","json:target/"} , features="/src/test/java/cucumber/features")
public class Launcher {

}

Feature file -

Feature: it works demo

  Scenario: First test
    Given this is my step
    When this is my second step
    Then this is my final step

List of Dependencies added to list -

cucumber-core-1.1.8
cucumber-html-0.2.3
cucumber-java-1.1.8
cucumber-junit-1.1.8
cucumber-jvm-deps-1.0.3
gherkin-2.12.2
hamcrest-all-1.3
junit-4.11
selenium-api-2.42.2
selenium-firefox-driver-2.42.2
selenium-java-2.42.2
selenium-remote-driver-2.42.2
selenium-support-2.42.2

My JVM - 1.7

Only this much is available in project.

Please help.

Answer 1

Make sure you're adding below dependencies for Maven project:

You can replace version to the latest or the required version:

    <dependency>
        <groupId>info.cukes</groupId>
        <artifactId>cucumber-java</artifactId>
        <version>1.2.0</version>
        <scope>test</scope>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
        <groupId>info.cukes</groupId>
        <artifactId>cucumber-junit</artifactId>
        <version>1.2.0</version>
    </dependency>

Answer 2

This error is thrown when no 'backends' are found on the classpath. There is a 'backend' for each supported language (e.g. cucumber-java, cucumber-groovy etc.)

It's probably a classpath error, although if cucumber-core and cucumber-java are in the same location that does seem strange.

Answer 3

You can try the cucumber-java-1.2.4 at https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/info.cukes/cucumber-java/1.2.4.

I found that trying a previous version of the same JAR file worked for me. I guess this may solve for other people as well. In case it does not, please add another answer.

Let me know if it worked for you and saved some valuable time :-)

Answer 4

Here is the fix: in eclipse projects add the following in the .project file

<buildSpec>
  ...
  <buildCommand>
	<name>cucumber.eclipse.steps.jdt.stepsBuilder</name>
	<arguments>
	</arguments>
  </buildCommand>
</buildSpec>
<natures>
  ...
  <nature>cucumber.eclipse.steps.jdt.stepsNature</nature>
</natures>

If this did not fix the issue, add the dependency

cucumber-java

in the project classpath or change the version of the jar to latest or n-1

Answer 5

I encountered this same error message when trying to run a Cucumber feature file in Eclipse ("No backends were found. Please make sure you have a backend module on your CLASSPATH").

What fixed it for me was going into my pom.xml and changing the cucumber-java and cucumber-junit versions away from 1.2.5 (per their documentation) to 1.2.0.

I'm not 100% sure if I'm ignoring a real issue by doing this or not. Here is more information about my setup:

• Windows 10
• Eclipse Neon (4.6.0)
• Apache Maven 3.5.0
• Java 1.8

I verified via quick commands that java and maven are installed successfully and running on my machine. I also verified that Maven pulled in the cucumber-java, and cucumber-core jars in my Eclipse project. Odd.

Answer 6

Adding the following dependency I got resolved this issue

   <dependency>
       <groupId>io.cucumber</groupId>
       <artifactId>cucumber-java</artifactId>
       <version>4.2.6</version>
   </dependency>