java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/apache/http/client/HttpClient

I am trying to make a get request from the GWT servlet to get JSON response from a web service. Following is the code in my servlet :

public String getQueData() throws IllegalArgumentException {
    String message = null;
    try {		    
        HttpClient httpclient = new DefaultHttpClient(); 
        JSONParser parser = new JSONParser();

        String url = "working - url";
        HttpResponse response = null;
        response = httpclient.execute(new HttpGet(url));

        JSONObject json_data = null;
        json_data = (JSONObject)parser.parse(EntityUtils.toString(response.getEntity()));
        JSONArray results = (JSONArray)json_data.get("result");
        for (Object queid : results) {
            message = message.concat((String) ((JSONObject)queid).get("id"));
            message = message.concat("\t");
            message = message.concat((String) ((JSONObject)queid).get("owner"));
            message = message.concat("\n");
        }
      } catch (Exception e) {
    message = e.toString();
    }
    return message;
}

Getting the following exception on trying to make get request from a GWT servlet.

java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: org/apache/http/client/HttpClient
	at java.lang.Class.getDeclaredConstructors0(Native Method)
	at java.lang.Class.privateGetDeclaredConstructors(Class.java:2389)
	at java.lang.Class.getConstructor0(Class.java:2699)
	at java.lang.Class.newInstance0(Class.java:326)
	at java.lang.Class.newInstance(Class.java:308)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.Holder.newInstance(Holder.java:153)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.ServletHolder.initServlet(ServletHolder.java:428)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.ServletHolder.getServlet(ServletHolder.java:339)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.ServletHolder.handle(ServletHolder.java:487)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler$CachedChain.doFilter(ServletHandler.java:1166)
	at com.google.appengine.tools.development.HeaderVerificationFilter.doFilter(HeaderVerificationFilter.java:35)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler$CachedChain.doFilter(ServletHandler.java:1157)
	at com.google.appengine.api.blobstore.dev.ServeBlobFilter.doFilter(ServeBlobFilter.java:60)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler$CachedChain.doFilter(ServletHandler.java:1157)
	at com.google.apphosting.utils.servlet.TransactionCleanupFilter.doFilter(TransactionCleanupFilter.java:43)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler$CachedChain.doFilter(ServletHandler.java:1157)
	at com.google.appengine.tools.development.StaticFileFilter.doFilter(StaticFileFilter.java:122)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler$CachedChain.doFilter(ServletHandler.java:1157)
	at com.google.appengine.tools.development.BackendServersFilter.doFilter(BackendServersFilter.java:97)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler$CachedChain.doFilter(ServletHandler.java:1157)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.ServletHandler.handle(ServletHandler.java:388)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.security.SecurityHandler.handle(SecurityHandler.java:216)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.servlet.SessionHandler.handle(SessionHandler.java:182)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.handler.ContextHandler.handle(ContextHandler.java:765)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.webapp.WebAppContext.handle(WebAppContext.java:418)
	at com.google.appengine.tools.development.DevAppEngineWebAppContext.handle(DevAppEngineWebAppContext.java:78)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.handler.HandlerWrapper.handle(HandlerWrapper.java:152)
	at com.google.appengine.tools.development.JettyContainerService$ApiProxyHandler.handle(JettyContainerService.java:362)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.handler.HandlerWrapper.handle(HandlerWrapper.java:152)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.Server.handle(Server.java:326)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.HttpConnection.handleRequest(HttpConnection.java:542)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.HttpConnection$RequestHandler.content(HttpConnection.java:938)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.HttpParser.parseNext(HttpParser.java:755)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.HttpParser.parseAvailable(HttpParser.java:218)
	at org.mortbay.jetty.HttpConnection.handle(HttpConnection.java:404)
	at org.mortbay.io.nio.SelectChannelEndPoint.run(SelectChannelEndPoint.java:409)
	at org.mortbay.thread.QueuedThreadPool$PoolThread.run(QueuedThreadPool.java:582)
Caused by: java.lang.ClassNotFoundException: org.apache.http.client.HttpClient
	at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:202)
	at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
	at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:190)
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:306)
	at com.google.appengine.tools.development.IsolatedAppClassLoader.loadClass(IsolatedAppClassLoader.java:176)
	at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadClass(ClassLoader.java:247)

What could be the possible cause of this exception? How it could be removed?

I am using jdk1.6.0_30 on ubuntu 10.04.

If its a maven project, add the below dependency in your pom file

	<dependency>
		<groupId>org.apache.httpcomponents</groupId>
		<artifactId>httpclient</artifactId>
		<version>4.3.4</version>
	</dependency>

>What could be the possible cause of this exception?

You may not have appropriate Jar in your class path.

>How it could be removed?

By putting HTTPClient jar in your class path. If it's a webapp, copy Jar into WEB-INF/lib if it's standalone, make sure you have this jar in class path or explicitly set using -cp option

as the doc says,

>Thrown if the Java Virtual Machine or a ClassLoader instance tries to load in the definition of a class (as part of a normal method call or as part of creating a new instance using the new expression) and no definition of the class could be found. > The searched-for class definition existed when the currently executing class was compiled, but the definition can no longer be found.

Edit:
If you are using a dependency management like Maven/Gradle (see the answer below) or SBT please use it to bring the httpclient jar for you.

I solved this issue for myself, I found there's was two files of http-client with different version of other dependent jar files. So there may version were collapsing between libraries files so remove all old/previous libraries files and re-add are jar files from lib folder of this zip file:

Donwload Zip file from here

I was facing the same issue. In my case, I had a dependency of httpclient with an older version while sendgrid required a newer version of httpclient. Just make sure that the version of httpclient is correct in your dependencies and it would work fine.

This problem occurs if there are different jar versions. Especially versions of httpcore and httpclient. Use same versions of httpcore and httpclient.

I have solved this problem by importing the following dependency. you must manually import httpclient

<dependency>
    <groupId>commons-httpclient</groupId>
    <artifactId>commons-httpclient</artifactId>
    <version>3.1</version>
    <exclusions>
        <exclusion>
            <groupId>commons-logging</groupId>
            <artifactId>*</artifactId>
        </exclusion>
    </exclusions>
</dependency>

After Creating Artifact Jar I was facing this Problem. What I do that, I create a new Artifact > With Module Dependency > And then Leave Blank the Main Class. In that way, after creating the artifact jar, the jar was running Ok. I, think the problem was, http-client from org.apache and from network - this two types of class used for different libraries at the same Time in my first Artifact and the problem arises. So, When I created new Artifact, and leaving unnecessary libraries and duplicate libraries, the problem gone.

I faced the same issue, later I found I was using wrong gradle dependency.,

Wrong:

compileOnly 'org.apache.httpcomponents:httpclient:4.5.3'

Correct:

implementation group: 'org.apache.httpcomponents', name: 'httpclient', version: '4.5.3'

Once I changed it, it was working fine.