Problem:

When using a JDK 1.5 environment, the XML Digital Signature Reference throws an abstract method error for TransformerFactory.setFeature().

Solution:

Remove the old XSLT implementation in the classpath. Another solution is to define a system property to pick the default implementation in JDK 1.5. The name of the property is javax.xml.transform.TransformerFactory and the value to assign is:

com.sun.org.apache.xalan.internal.xsltc.trax.TransformerFactoryImpl

Note: This issue does not occur when running with JDK 1.6.