Java serialization - java.io.InvalidClassException local class incompatible

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Answer 1

@DanielChapman gives a good explanation of serialVersionUID, but no solution. the solution is this: run the serialver program on all your old classes. put these serialVersionUID values in your current versions of the classes. as long as the current classes are serial compatible with the old versions, you should be fine. (note for future code: you should always have a serialVersionUID on all Serializable classes)

if the new versions are not serial compatible, then you need to do some magic with a custom readObject implementation (you would only need a custom writeObject if you were trying to write new class data which would be compatible with old code). generally speaking adding or removing class fields does not make a class serial incompatible. changing the type of existing fields usually will.

Of course, even if the new class is serial compatible, you may still want a custom readObject implementation. you may want this if you want to fill in any new fields which are missing from data saved from old versions of the class (e.g. you have a new List field which you want to initialize to an empty list when loading old class data).