I am attempting to test my UserDaoTests.java file with TestNG and receive a "FAILED CONFIGURATION: @BeforeClass springTestContextPrepareTestInstance" error. The applicationContext.xml file is being picked up and read-in correctly so it cannot be that its a configuration error. The error statement I am getting, "@BeforeClass springTestContextPrepareTestInstance", seems to be coming from the super class, AbstractTransactionalTestNGSpringContextTests. 

Any idea how we can avoid this error? Maybe there is an include or exclude not mentioned in the examples? Has anyone else experienced this error?

I wanted to point out for anybody else who runs into this problem, the Professor's comment fixed the issue. All Spring dependencies should be version 3.1.4-RELEASE. 

Its in the Spring and Hibernate tutorial and I missed it originally.