title: In Spring, getting "java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Could not resolve placeholder" despite having defined "PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer"
body: <p>I’m using Spring 3.2.11.RELEASE with Maven 3.3.  I have this defined in my application context file …</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;bean id="localPropertyConfigurer"
      class="org.springframework.beans.factory.config.PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer"&gt;
       &lt;property name="locations"&gt;
          &lt;list&gt;
              &lt;value&gt;classpath:quickbase.properties&lt;/value&gt;
          &lt;/list&gt;
          &lt;/property&gt;
  &lt;/bean&gt; 
  …
  &lt;bean id=“myClient" class="org.mainco.subco.mysystem.MyClient"&gt;
      &lt;constructor-arg index="0" type="String" value="${quickbase.username}" /&gt;
      &lt;constructor-arg index="1" type="String" value="${quickbase.password}" /&gt;
      &lt;constructor-arg index="2" type="String" value="${quickbase.url}" /&gt;
  &lt;/bean&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>but when I run my test, I get the below error</p>
  
  <pre><code>Caused by: org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanDefinitionStoreException: Invalid bean definition with name 'myClient' defined in class path resource [META-INF/spring/applicationContext-orders.xml]: Could not resolve placeholder 'quickbase.username' in string value "${quickbase.username}"; nested exception is java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Could not resolve placeholder 'quickbase.username' in string value "${quickbase.username}"
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>This is baffling me because in my target/classes directory, I can see a file, “quickbase.properties,” that has the “quickbase.username” defined.  I can’t figure out what else I need to check. </p>