How to resolve unable to load driver class: org.h2.Driver in spring-boot application?

I'm facing this error :

Error creating bean with name 
'org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.orm.jpa.HibernateJpaConfiguration': Unsatisfied dependency expressed through constructor parameter 0;      
nested exception is org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'dataSource' defined in class path resource [org/springframework/boot/autoconfigure/jdbc/DataSourceConfiguration$Hikari.class]: Bean instantiation via factory method failed; nested exception is org.springframework.beans.BeanInstantiationException: Failed to instantiate [com.zaxxer.hikari.HikariDataSource]: Factory method 'dataSource' threw exception; nested exception is java.lang.IllegalStateException: Cannot load driver class: org.h2.Driver

Why I'm facing this issue ?

Here is the pom.xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
	xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 https://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
	<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
	<parent>
		<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
		<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
		<version>2.3.3.RELEASE</version>
		<relativePath/> <!-- lookup parent from repository -->
	</parent>
	<groupId>com.wipro.boot</groupId>
	<artifactId>h2sample</artifactId>
	<version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
	<packaging>war</packaging>
	<name>demo</name>
	<description>Demo project for Spring Boot</description>

	<properties>
		<java.version>1.8</java.version>
	</properties>

	<dependencies>
		<dependency>
			<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
			<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-data-jpa</artifactId>
		</dependency>
		<dependency>
			<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
			<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
		</dependency>

		<dependency>
			<groupId>com.h2database</groupId>
			<artifactId>h2</artifactId>
			<scope>test</scope>
		</dependency>
		<dependency>
			<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
			<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-tomcat</artifactId>
			<scope>provided</scope>
		</dependency>
		<dependency>
			<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
			<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
			<scope>test</scope>
			<exclusions>
				<exclusion>
					<groupId>org.junit.vintage</groupId>
					<artifactId>junit-vintage-engine</artifactId>
				</exclusion>
			</exclusions>
		</dependency>
	</dependencies>

	<build>
		<plugins>
			<plugin>
				<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
				<artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
			</plugin>
		</plugins>
	</build>

</project>

Here is the application.properties file:

spring.h2.console.enabled=true
spring.datasource.url=jdbc:h2:mem:testdb
spring.datasource.driverClassName=org.h2.Driver
spring.datasource.username=sa
spring.datasource.password=password
spring.jpa.database-platform=org.hibernate.dialect.H2Dialect

Make the jar available in runtime.

Modify the scope for h2 dependency in the pom.xml :

<dependency>
<groupId>com.h2database</groupId>
<artifactId>h2</artifactId>
<scope>runtime</scope>
</dependency>

You declare the h2 driver in the test scope which means it is only available during the test case execution.

If you want the h2 driver is also available when executing the application normally , change its scope to the default one (i.e compile) should solve the problem :

       <dependency>
                <groupId>com.h2database</groupId>
                <artifactId>h2</artifactId>
       </dependency>

In my case the problem was caused by some trailing blank characters after the driver classname in application.properties

This fails (dots in the code snippet below should be read as whitespace chars):

spring.datasource.driverClassName=org.h2.Driver...

This succeeds:

spring.datasource.driverClassName=org.h2.Driver