Getting "Skipping JaCoCo execution due to missing execution data file" upon executing JaCoCo

Question

jacoco-maven-plugin:0.7.10-SNAPSHOT

From jacoco:prepare-agent that says:

One of the ways to do this in case of maven-surefire-plugin - is to use syntax for late property evaluation:

<plugin>
  <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
  <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
  <configuration>
    <argLine>@{argLine} -your -extra -arguments</argLine>
  </configuration>
</plugin>

Note the @{argLine} that's added to -your -extra -arguments.

Thanks Slava Semushin for noticing the change and reporting in the comment.

jacoco-maven-plugin:0.7.2-SNAPSHOT

Following jacoco:prepare-agent that says:

[org.jacoco:jacoco-maven-plugin:0.7.2-SNAPSHOT:prepare-agent] Prepares a property pointing to the JaCoCo runtime agent that can be passed as a VM argument to the application under test. Depending on the project packaging type by default a property with the following name is set:

• tycho.testArgLine for packaging type eclipse-test-plugin and
• argLine otherwise.

Note that these properties must not be overwritten by the test configuration, otherwise the JaCoCo agent cannot be attached. If you need custom parameters please append them. For example:

<argLine>${argLine} -your -extra -arguments</argLine>

Resulting coverage information is collected during execution and by default written to a file when the process terminates.

you should change the following line in maven-surefire-plugin plugin configuration from (note the ${argLine} inside <argLine>):

<argLine>-Xmx2048m</argLine>

to

<argLine>${argLine} -Xmx2048m</argLine>

Make also the necessary changes to the other plugin maven-failsafe-plugin and replace the following (again, notice the ${argLine}):

<argLine>-Xmx4096m -XX:MaxPermSize=512M ${itCoverageAgent}</argLine>

to

<argLine>${argLine} -Xmx4096m -XX:MaxPermSize=512M ${itCoverageAgent}</argLine>

I faced a bit of a different issue that returned the same error.

Skipping JaCoCo execution due to missing execution data /target/jacoco.exec

The truth is, this error is returned for many, many reasons. We experimented with the different solutions on Stack Overflow, but found this resource to be best. It tears down the many different potential reasons why Jacoco could be returning the same error.

For us, the solution was to add a prepare-agent to the configuration.

<execution>
   <id>default-prepare-agent</id>
   <goals>
       <goal>prepare-agent</goal>
   </goals>
</execution>

I would imagine most users will be experiencing it for different reasons, so take a look at the aforementioned resource!

One can also get "Skipping JaCoCo execution due to missing execution data file" error due to missing tests in project. For example when you fire up new project and have no *Test.java files at all.

There might a case where some other argline setup or plugin in pom may be overriding jacoco execution order setup.

argLine set to -javaagent:/Users/davea/.m2/repository/org/jacoco/org.jacoco.agent/0.6.2.201302030002/org.jacoco.agent-0.6.2.201302030002-runtime.jar=destfile=/Users/davea/Dropbox/workspace/myproject/target/jacoco.exec

One of the example

           <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>2.16</version>
                <configuration>
                    <forkCount>5</forkCount>
                    <reuseForks>true</reuseForks>
                    <argLine>-Dnet.sf.ehcache.disabled=true</argLine>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>

After getting rid of argLine from these plugins, jacoco started to work normally.

I know this question is pretty old but if someone like me comes here looking for an answer then this might help. I have been able to overcome the above error with this.

1) Remove the below piece of code from the plugin maven-surefire-plugin

 <reuseForks>true</reuseForks>
 <argLine>-Xmx2048m</argLine>

2) Add the below goal:

<execution>
<id>default-prepare-agent</id>
<goals>
   <goal>prepare-agent</goal>
</goals>
</execution>

FWhat tdrury said:

change your plugin configuration into this:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.jacoco</groupId>
    <artifactId>jacoco-maven-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>0.6.3.201306030806</version>
    <executions>
      <!-- prepare agent for measuring integration tests -->
      <execution>
        <id>prepare-integration-tests</id>
        <phase>pre-integration-test</phase>
        <goals>
          <goal>prepare-agent</goal>
        </goals>
        <configuration>
          <destFile>${basedir}/target/coverage-reports/jacoco-unit.exec</destFile>
        </configuration>
      </execution>
      <execution>
        <id>jacoco-site</id>
        <phase>post-integration-test</phase>
        <goals>
          <goal>report</goal>
        </goals>
        <configuration>
          <dataFile>${basedir}/target/coverage-reports/jacoco-unit.exec</dataFile>
        </configuration>
      </execution>
    </executions>
  </plugin>

Edit: Just noticed one important thing, destFile and dataFile seems case sensitive so it's supposed to be destFile, not destfile.