IntelliJ Spring Boot Starter Not Found Error

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I frequently encounter what I suspect is a Maven issue within IntelliJ when attempting to change the version of a Spring Boot Starter Parent. It also sometimes happens upon the initial addition of any Maven parent dependencies into a project’s pom.xml file. This usually results in the following error within IntelliJ’s Problems tab:

Project 'org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-parent:3.0.0' not found.

IntelliJ org.springframework.boot:spring-boot-starter-parent not found

No matter how many times you press the Reload All Maven Projects button, the error will persist. Sometimes I have noticed it will continue even through a complete restart of the IntelliJ IDE.

The most reliable way I have found to solve this error is to open the File menu and select Invalidate Caches… from the dropdown menu.

IntelliJ invalidate caches menu

From here you will be prompted with a few options. Select the checkbox for Clear downloaded shared indexes.

IntelliJ Maven invalidate caches and restart

Finally, click the Invalidate and Restart button and IntelliJ will reload and re-index your project’s Maven dependencies. If you find a more permanent solution for this issue, please drop a comment below and let me know!