spring - Error when using AspectJ AOP with Java 7

Question

I've updated Java to version "1.7.0_09-icedtea" (previously it was 1.6) and get the following message:

Instantiation of bean failed; nested exception is org.springframework.beans.BeanInstantiationException: Could not instantiate be
an class [org.springframework.aop.aspectj.AspectJPointcutAdvisor]: Constructor threw exception; nested exception is java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: error the 
@annotation pointcut expression is only supported at Java 5 compliance level or above

Application had been compiled with java 1.6 and compiler compliance level was set to 1.6 as well. I'm using spring 3.1.0

Has anyone been able to get aspectj working under Java 7?

Answer 1

AspectJ 1.5.4 is not designed to work with Java7. Try upgrading your version of AspectJ to 1.7.0 or higher (latest was 1.7.2 as of this writing).

(I had AspectJ/Java7 issues before, too)