Apache Kafka error on windows - Couldnot find or load main class QuorumPeerMain

Had the same error message even though I had the correct Kafka download for my Scala version.

It ended up I was running the non-windows sh file (needed to run the bat in the windows sub-folder) and was running from within the bin folder instead of the root. Moving up to the root Kafka folder and running from there appears to have worked.

C:\kafka_2.10-0.8.2.0>bin\windows\zookeeper-server-start.bat config\zookeeper.properties

I also got the same problem in Windows platform due to keeping the kafka_2.12-2.3.0 folder in the Program Files. I changed the Kafka directory from Program Files to C:\ drive root directory. It worked fine after executing the following commands:

First, go to the Kafka root folder:

cd C:\kafka_2.12-2.3.0

Run Zookeeper server:

bin\windows\zookeeper-server-start.bat config\zookeeper.properties

Then Run Kafka Server:

bin\windows\kafka-server-start.bat config\server.properties

Run these commands from your Kafka root folder:

cd bin\windows

Then run Zookeper server:

zookeeper-server-start.bat ..\..\config\zookeeper.properties

Then run Kafka server:

kafka-server-start.bat ..\..\config\server.properties

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The gotcha here is to run the .bat files from the /bin/windows folder, so after you run your servers with the steps above and want to follow up with the tutorial, make sure you are running the correct batch files to create topics and whatnot, e.g.:

Create a topic:

kafka-topics.bat --create --zookeeper localhost:2181 --replication-factor 1 --partitions 1 --topic test

List topics:

kafka-topics.bat --list --zookeeper localhost:2181

This problem happened because you have downloaded wrong version of Kafka. On the official page

you have selected Source download. If you will download the binary, everything will work as expected.