I am using Windows 7, Java 1.8.0_111-b14, and Apache Maven 3.3.9.
Now, concerning the shade plugin version, I think it could be related with the issue I had. At the beggining I was using version 1.3.1. Then when Jim told me you were using version 2.4.3 at GeoMesa, I switched to that version, but the issue persisted. After a little bit of research, I realized a lot of poms doesn't specify any version for the shade plugin. I guess this uses the latest version by default. So I deleted the version anchor on the shade plugin and rebuilt the jar. Everything seems to work perfectly now.
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-shade-plugin</artifactId>
<executions>
<execution>
<phase>package</phase>
<goals>
<goal>shade</goal>
</goals>
<configuration>
<createDependencyReducedPom>false</createDependencyReducedPom>
<filters>
<filter>
<artifact>*:*</artifact>
<excludes>
<exclude>META-INF/*.SF</exclude>
<exclude>META-INF/*.DSA</exclude>
<exclude>META-INF/*.RSA</exclude>
<exclude>org/objectweb/asm/**</exclude>
</excludes>
</filter>
</filters>
<relocations>
<relocation>
<pattern>com.clearspring.analytics</pattern>
<shadedPattern>org.locationtech.geomesa.shaded.com.clearspring.analytics</shadedPattern>
</relocation>
<relocation>
<pattern>com.google.common</pattern>
<shadedPattern>org.locationtech.geomesa.shaded.com.google.common</shadedPattern>
</relocation>
<relocation>
<pattern>org.apache.commons.codec</pattern>
<shadedPattern>org.locationtech.geomesa.shaded.org.apache.commons.codec</shadedPattern>
</relocation>
<!-- shade thrift because spark depends on 0.9.2 and accumulo 1.8
depends on 0.9.3 -->
<relocation>
<pattern>org.apache.thrift</pattern>
<shadedPattern>org.locationtech.geomesa.shaded.org.apache.thrift</shadedPattern>
</relocation>
</relocations>
<transformers>
<!-- This bit sets the main class for the executable jar as you otherwise -->
<!-- would with the assembly plugin -->
<transformer
implementation="org.apache.maven.plugins.shade.resource.ManifestResourceTransformer">
<manifestEntries>
<Main-Class>com.praxedo.geomesa.geomesa_spark.Test</Main-Class>
</manifestEntries>
</transformer>
<transformer
implementation="org.apache.maven.plugins.shade.resource.ServicesResourceTransformer" />
</transformers>
</configuration>
</execution>
</executions>
</plugin>
José.