NoClassDefFoundError in Eclipse MTJ

Yesterday I started to implement a new feature in the PatternFormatter for Microlog. A user wanted the ability to print the absolute time. The first implementation was pretty rudimentary, the only available format was the default format used in Log4j's PatternLayout. It worked but today I wanted to improve it. I had planned a snapshot release after that. But I ran into unforeseen troubles. When trying to execute the example MIDlet to try it out, I get the following message in the console window;

java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: net/sf/microlog/Appender
at com.sun.midp.midlet.MIDletState.createMIDlet(+29)
at com.sun.midp.midlet.Scheduler.schedule(+52)
at com.sun.midp.main.Main.runLocalClass(+28)
at com.sun.midp.main.Main.main(+80)

Notice that this is not a classic ClassNotFoundException problem. A ClassNotFoundException is always quite easy to fix. You have to check that you have your classpaths in order. This is something that a every Java developer has to learn to fix, otherwise you do not survive as a Java developer for long. But to fix the NoClassDefFoundError is harder. It basically means that your environment has found the class, but there is something fishy with the bytecode. In this case I have no clue. Is this a compiler problem? Is it a problem with the preverifier? I have done Googling on it, but did not find any relevant answers. Is a problem with Eclipse MTJ? Do you have any clue?

So bear with me, there is a new Microlog snapshot release on its way. I will have to fix the above problem before releasing the code. For the impatient developer, the code is available in the Microlog source repository.