java.lang.IllegalAccessError: class lombok.javac.apt.LombokProcessor cannot access class com.sun.tools.javac.processing.JavacProcessingEnvironment [duplicate]

Switch to at least the 1.18.22 version of Lombok that contains the fix

<dependency>
  <groupId>org.projectlombok</groupId>
  <artifactId>lombok</artifactId>
  <version>1.18.22</version>
</dependency>

To see the last version of lombok, follow this link on search.maven.org

@FrankyFred has provided a temporary solution to be able to use Lombok: https://stackoverflow.com/a/66981165/12586904

As far as my research goes and the various responses that I received to this question, it seems like there is no possible way of running Lombok currently in OpenJDK 16. As such, an alternative to using Lombok is to put the @data methods manually in your code. The following link briefly explains how to do this in case you are new to this topic: https://javabydeveloper.com/lombok-data-annotation/#:~:text=Lombok%20Data%20annotation%20(%20%40Data%20),as%20well%20as%20a%20constructor.

Sample pseudo code representing what @Data really represents:

@Getter @Setter 
@RequiredArgsConstructor
@ToString 
@EqualsAndHashCode
public class User1 {
  private Long id;
  private String username;
  
}

The Lombok @Data annotation minimizes the usage of more annotations when you need to generate all the above seven requirements, but they essentially achieve the same objectives when running the code.

I am by no means an expert at this, but hopefully, this will help anyone else who gets stuck using Lombok but needs to find an alternative since their book/tutorial might utilize it and u would still like to continue with the book/tutorial.

It seems can be solved by adding plugin in pom.xml

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>3.8.1</version>
    <configuration>
        <source>16</source>
        <target>16</target>
        <!--                    <release>16</release>-->
        <fork>true</fork>
        <compilerArgs>
            <arg>--enable-preview</arg>
            <arg>-Xlint:all</arg>
            <arg>-J--add-opens=jdk.compiler/com.sun.tools.javac.code=ALL-UNNAMED</arg>
            <arg>-J--add-opens=jdk.compiler/com.sun.tools.javac.comp=ALL-UNNAMED</arg>
            <arg>-J--add-opens=jdk.compiler/com.sun.tools.javac.file=ALL-UNNAMED</arg>
            <arg>-J--add-opens=jdk.compiler/com.sun.tools.javac.main=ALL-UNNAMED</arg>
            <arg>-J--add-opens=jdk.compiler/com.sun.tools.javac.model=ALL-UNNAMED</arg>
            <arg>-J--add-opens=jdk.compiler/com.sun.tools.javac.parser=ALL-UNNAMED</arg>
            <arg>-J--add-opens=jdk.compiler/com.sun.tools.javac.processing=ALL-UNNAMED</arg>
            <arg>-J--add-opens=jdk.compiler/com.sun.tools.javac.tree=ALL-UNNAMED</arg>
            <arg>-J--add-opens=jdk.compiler/com.sun.tools.javac.util=ALL-UNNAMED</arg>
            <arg>-J--add-opens=jdk.compiler/com.sun.tools.javac.jvm=ALL-UNNAMED</arg>
        </compilerArgs>
        <!--for unmappable characters in classes-->
        <encoding>UTF-8</encoding>
        <showDeprecation>true</showDeprecation>
        <showWarnings>true</showWarnings>
        <!--for lombok annotations to resolve-->
        <!--contradictory to maven, intelliJ fails with this-->
        <annotationProcessorPaths>
            <path>
                <groupId>org.projectlombok</groupId>
                <artifactId>lombok</artifactId>
                <version>1.18.16</version>
            </path>
        </annotationProcessorPaths>
    </configuration>
</plugin>

solution from Lombok's access to jdk.compiler's internal packages incompatible with Java-16