How to solve Gson builder error when starting a Spring Boot application

Question

I am writing a new Spring Boot application and I need to use one package which has been developed by my team. This package has older Gson dependency somewhere down the hierarchy (which I could not find), therefore while running my application following error was thrown :

NoSuchMethodError: com.google.gson.GsonBuilder.setLenient()Lcom/google/gson/GsonBuilder.

I tried to

1. Specify the Gson dependency exclusively in my pom, so as to enforce the latest version

2. Add the dependency in DependencyManagement section

3. Exclude the Gson dependency as follows :

   <dependency>
    <groupId>com.mycompany</groupId>
    <artifactId>services</artifactId>
    <version>${version}</version>
    <exclusions>
       <exclusion>
           <groupId>com.google.code.gson</groupId>
           <artifactId>gson</artifactId>
       </exclusion>
    </exclusions>
   </dependency>
   

All three options did not work. finally I was able to get my application running by excluding GsonAutoConfiguration.

Questions I am desperately trying to understand here:

1. Why the earlier options did not work
2. If I am skipping Gson AutoConfiguration, what am I losing and how can I achieve that?

Any help in this regard will be highly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

pom.xml

<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 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
<modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

<groupId>com.mycompany</groupId>
<artifactId>myapp</artifactId>
<version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
<name>myapp</name>


<properties>
    <java.version>1.8</java.version>
    <spring.boot.version>2.1.7.RELEASE</spring.boot.version>
    <camel.version>2.24.1</camel.version>
    <lasius.wsutils.version>3.0.37</lasius.wsutils.version>
    <mysql.connector.version>5.1.47</mysql.connector.version>
</properties>

<!--<parent>
    <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
    <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-parent</artifactId>
    <version>2.1.7.RELEASE</version>
</parent>-->
<dependencyManagement>
    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.apache.camel</groupId>
            <artifactId>camel-spring-boot-dependencies</artifactId>
            <version>${camel.version}</version>
            <type>pom</type>
            <scope>import</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-dependencies</artifactId>
            <version>${spring.boot.version}</version>
            <type>pom</type>
            <scope>import</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.google.code.gson</groupId>
            <artifactId>gson</artifactId>
            <version>2.8.5</version>
            <type>pom</type>
            <scope>import</scope>
        </dependency>
    </dependencies>
</dependencyManagement>


<dependencies>
    <!--Spring Boot dependencies-->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-web</artifactId>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-actuator</artifactId>
    </dependency>
    <!--<dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-data-jpa</artifactId>
    </dependency>-->
    <!-- camel dependencies -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.apache.camel</groupId>
        <artifactId>camel-spring-boot-starter</artifactId>
    </dependency>
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.apache.camel</groupId>
        <artifactId>camel-undertow-starter</artifactId>
    </dependency>

    <!-- test dependencies -->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
        <artifactId>spring-boot-starter-test</artifactId>
        <scope>test</scope>
    </dependency>

    <!--being resolved from auth-->
    <!--<dependency>
        <groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.core</groupId>
        <artifactId>jackson-databind</artifactId>
        <version>2.9.9.3</version>
    </dependency>-->
    <dependency>
        <groupId>mysql</groupId>
        <artifactId>mysql-connector-java</artifactId>
        <version>${mysql.connector.version}</version>
    </dependency>


    <dependency>
        <groupId>com.mycompany</groupId>
        <artifactId>services</artifactId>
        <version>${version}</version>
        <exclusions>
            <exclusion>
                <groupId>com.google.code.gson</groupId>
                <artifactId>gson</artifactId>
            </exclusion>
        </exclusions>
    </dependency>
</dependencies>

<build>
    <plugins>
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
            <artifactId>spring-boot-maven-plugin</artifactId>
            <version>${spring.boot.version}</version>
            <executions>
                <execution>
                    <goals>
                        <goal>repackage</goal>
                    </goals>
                </execution>
            </executions>
        </plugin>
        <plugin>
            <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
            <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
            <configuration>
                <source>8</source>
                <target>8</target>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>
    </plugins>
</build>

</project>