Q:

java.lang.IllegalAccessError with Retrofit 2 at com.google.gson.Gson.newJsonWriter

How to figure out what causes this IllegalAccessError issue? Any help is appreciated.
I already followed some of the fixes/workaround and use Gson 2.8 from maven. Here is the partial Maven configuration:
<dependency>
    <groupId>com.squareup.retrofit2</groupId>
    <artifactId>converter-gson</artifactId>
    <version>2.2.0</version>
    <exclusions>
        <exclusion>
            <groupId>com.google.code.gson</groupId>
            <artifactId>gson</artifactId>
        </exclusion>
    </exclusions>
</dependency>

<dependency>
    <groupId>com.google.code.gson</groupId>
    <artifactId>gson</artifactId>
    <version>2.8.0</version>
</dependency>

and full stack trace: 
java.lang.IllegalAccessError: tried to access method com.google.gson.Gson.newJsonWriter(Ljava/io/Writer;)Lcom/google/gson/stream/JsonWriter; from class retrofit2.converter.gson.GsonRequestBodyConverter
    at retrofit2.converter.gson.GsonRequestBodyConverter.convert(GsonRequestBodyConverter.java:45)
    at retrofit2.converter.gson.GsonRequestBodyConverter.convert(GsonRequestBodyConverter.java:30)
    at retrofit2.ParameterHandler$Body.apply(ParameterHandler.java:312)
    at retrofit2.ServiceMethod.toRequest(ServiceMethod.java:110)
    at retrofit2.OkHttpCall.createRawCall(OkHttpCall.java:178)
    at retrofit2.OkHttpCall.execute(OkHttpCall.java:162)
    at com.xxxxxx.web.controller.UserController.exchangeAccessToken(UserController.java:2551)
    at com.xxxxxx.web.controller.UserController.plaidtoken(UserController.java:2645)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
    at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
    at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:498)
    at org.springframework.web.method.support.InvocableHandlerMethod.invoke(InvocableHandlerMethod.java:215)
    at org.springframework.web.method.support.InvocableHandlerMethod.invokeForRequest(InvocableHandlerMethod.java:132)
    at org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.annotation.ServletInvocableHandlerMethod.invokeAndHandle(ServletInvocableHandlerMethod.java:104)
    at org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.annotation.RequestMappingHandlerAdapter.invokeHandleMethod(RequestMappingHandlerAdapter.java:745)
    at org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.annotation.RequestMappingHandlerAdapter.handleInternal(RequestMappingHandlerAdapter.java:685)
    at org.springframework.web.servlet.mvc.method.AbstractHandlerMethodAdapter.handle(AbstractHandlerMethodAdapter.java:80)
    at org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.doDispatch(DispatcherServlet.java:919)
    at org.springframework.web.servlet.DispatcherServlet.doService(DispatcherServlet.java:851)
    at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.processRequest(FrameworkServlet.java:953)
    at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.doPost(FrameworkServlet.java:855)
    at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:661)
    at org.springframework.web.servlet.FrameworkServlet.service(FrameworkServlet.java:829)
    at javax.servlet.http.HttpServlet.service(HttpServlet.java:742)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:230)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:165)
    at org.apache.tomcat.websocket.server.WsFilter.doFilter(WsFilter.java:52)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:192)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:165)
    at org.springframework.web.filter.CharacterEncodingFilter.doFilterInternal(CharacterEncodingFilter.java:88)
    at org.springframework.web.filter.OncePerRequestFilter.doFilter(OncePerRequestFilter.java:106)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:192)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:165)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardWrapperValve.invoke(StandardWrapperValve.java:198)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContextValve.invoke(StandardContextValve.java:96)
    at org.apache.catalina.authenticator.AuthenticatorBase.invoke(AuthenticatorBase.java:478)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:140)
    at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:80)
    at org.apache.catalina.valves.AbstractAccessLogValve.invoke(AbstractAccessLogValve.java:624)
    at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:87)
    at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:341)
    at org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Processor.service(Http11Processor.java:799)
    at org.apache.coyote.AbstractProcessorLight.process(AbstractProcessorLight.java:66)
    at org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol$ConnectionHandler.process(AbstractProtocol.java:861)
    at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.NioEndpoint$SocketProcessor.doRun(NioEndpoint.java:1455)
    at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.SocketProcessorBase.run(SocketProcessorBase.java:49)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1142)
    at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617)
    at org.apache.tomcat.util.threads.TaskThread$WrappingRunnable.run(TaskThread.java:61)
    at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)

A:

According to IllegalAccessError documentation:

Thrown if an application attempts to access or modify a field, or to call a method that it does not have access to.
...this error can only occur at run time if the definition of a class has incompatibly changed.

In your case the exception is throw at runtime which means that at compilation time the classpath  was different from the classpath at runtime.
In general case such problem can be solved by analysing transitive dependencies, you can use maven dependency plugin:
mvn dependency:tree

Most likely you'll find transitive dependency in some of your libs with gson version different from the one you declared.
Note: there is hight chance of braking something else if you replace one of transitive dependencies. Be careful with this and make sure you're using compatible libs.

