Unable to connect to HBase using Spark 3.5.0 and HBase 2.4.17

[vikshen]

I am trying to build the HBase Spark JAR (for EMR version 7.1.0) using the following command,
mvn --projects hbase-spark --also-make -Dspark.version=3.5.0 -Dscala.version=2.12.17 -Dhadoop-three.version=3.3.6 -Dscala.binary.version=2.12 -Dhbase.version=2.4.17 clean package
Two of the tests (i.e., org.apache.hadoop.hbase.spark.TestJavaHBaseContext and org.apache.hadoop.hbase.spark.TestJavaHBaseContextForLargeRows) fail with the same exception,

org.apache.hadoop.hbase.spark.TestJavaHBaseContextForLargeRows  Time elapsed: 36.854 s  <<< ERROR!
java.io.IOException: Shutting down
	at org.apache.hadoop.hbase.MiniHBaseCluster.init(MiniHBaseCluster.java:256)
	at org.apache.hadoop.hbase.MiniHBaseCluster.<init>(MiniHBaseCluster.java:109)
	at org.apache.hadoop.hbase.HBaseTestingUtility.startMiniHBaseCluster(HBaseTestingUtility.java:1131)
	at org.apache.hadoop.hbase.HBaseTestingUtility.startMiniCluster(HBaseTestingUtility.java:1094)
	at org.apache.hadoop.hbase.HBaseTestingUtility.startMiniCluster(HBaseTestingUtility.java:1058)
	at org.apache.hadoop.hbase.spark.TestJavaHBaseContext.init(TestJavaHBaseContext.java:107)
	at org.apache.hadoop.hbase.spark.TestJavaHBaseContextForLargeRows.setUpBeforeClass(TestJavaHBaseContextForLargeRows.java:51)
	at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
	at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
	at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
	at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:498)
	at org.junit.runners.model.FrameworkMethod$1.runReflectiveCall(FrameworkMethod.java:59)
	at org.junit.internal.runners.model.ReflectiveCallable.run(ReflectiveCallable.java:12)
	at org.junit.runners.model.FrameworkMethod.invokeExplosively(FrameworkMethod.java:56)
	at org.junit.internal.runners.statements.RunBefores.invokeMethod(RunBefores.java:33)
	at org.junit.internal.runners.statements.RunBefores.evaluate(RunBefores.java:24)
	at org.junit.internal.runners.statements.RunAfters.evaluate(RunAfters.java:27)
	at org.apache.hadoop.hbase.SystemExitRule$1.evaluate(SystemExitRule.java:39)
	at org.junit.internal.runners.statements.FailOnTimeout$CallableStatement.call(FailOnTimeout.java:299)
	at org.junit.internal.runners.statements.FailOnTimeout$CallableStatement.call(FailOnTimeout.java:293)
	at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:266)
	at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:748)
Caused by: java.lang.RuntimeException: Master not active after 30000ms
	at org.apache.hadoop.hbase.util.JVMClusterUtil.waitForEvent(JVMClusterUtil.java:221)
	at org.apache.hadoop.hbase.util.JVMClusterUtil.startup(JVMClusterUtil.java:177)
	at org.apache.hadoop.hbase.LocalHBaseCluster.startup(LocalHBaseCluster.java:407)
	at org.apache.hadoop.hbase.MiniHBaseCluster.init(MiniHBaseCluster.java:249)
	... 21 more

I bypassed the test failures by skipping them using -DskipTests=true, after which the build succeeded. However, I am unable to use the resulting JAR to connect to HBase using Spark. The table creation process using Spark fails with the following error,
java.lang.NoClassDefFoundError: com/google/protobuf/RpcChannel

Any advise would be very helpful.

P.S. Everything works seamlessly (both the tests as well as establishing a connection to HBase from Spark) with an older EMR version (i.e., 6.7.0), which uses older versions of HBase and Spark,
mvn --projects hbase-spark --also-make -Dspark.version=3.1.2 -Dscala.version=2.12.10 -Dhadoop-three.version=3.2.1 -Dscala.binary.version=2.12 -Dhbase.version=2.4.4 clean package
I am currently working on upgrading our EMR versions to leverage newer more-efficient instances, for which I need to upgrade the underlying HBase connector JAR.