Debugging the “Fatal error compiling: invalid target release: 11” issue. How to switch your development environment and IntelliJ settings to Java 11

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When updating to Java 11 from an older version of the language, make sure that your development environment is up to date. Otherwise you will receive the “Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-compiler-plugin:3.8.0:compile (default-compile) on project: Fatal error compiling: invalid target release: 11” error while building a project with Maven. Follow the checklist in this post to adjust the required settings for building a Spring Boot application.