Maven searches for missing english locale of site.xml

Question

During building a project with maven, I run into an issue generating javadoc after updating the version of its parent project.

2016-08-18 16:06:44.559 [INFO] <<< maven-javadoc-plugin:2.10.3:aggregate < generate-sources @ org.eclipse.scout.rt <<<
2016-08-18 16:06:44.560 [DEBUG] building maven31 dependency graph for org.eclipse.scout.rt:org.eclipse.scout.rt:pom:6.0.0-SNAPSHOT with Maven31DependencyGraphBuilder
2016-08-18 16:06:44.560 [DEBUG] Dependency collection stats: {ConflictMarker.analyzeTime=0, ConflictMarker.markTime=0, ConflictMarker.nodeCount=1, ConflictIdSorter.graphTime=0, ConflictIdSorter.topsortTime=0, ConflictIdSorter.conflictIdCount=0, ConflictIdSorter.conflictIdCycleCount=0, ConflictResolver.totalTime=0, ConflictResolver.conflictItemCount=0, DefaultDependencyCollector.collectTime=0, DefaultDependencyCollector.transformTime=0}
2016-08-18 16:06:44.561 [DEBUG] org.eclipse.scout.rt:org.eclipse.scout.rt:pom:6.0.0-SNAPSHOT
2016-08-18 16:06:44.636 [DEBUG]  canGenerateReport = true for project MavenProject: org.eclipse.scout.rt:org.eclipse.scout.rt:6.0.0-SNAPSHOT @ /home/<REDACTED>/workspace/org.eclipse.scout.rt.branch-6.0_nightly-sitedocs/org.eclipse.scout.rt/pom.xml
2016-08-18 16:06:44.662 [DEBUG] Computing decoration model of org.eclipse.scout.rt:org.eclipse.scout.rt:pom:6.0.0-SNAPSHOT for locale en
2016-08-18 16:06:44.662 [DEBUG] No site descriptor found for org.eclipse.scout.rt:org.eclipse.scout.rt:pom:6.0.0-SNAPSHOT
2016-08-18 16:06:44.663 [DEBUG] Looking for site descriptor of level 1 parent project: org.eclipse.scout:maven_rt_plugin_config-master:pom:2.0.7
2016-08-18 16:06:44.665 [DEBUG] Using transporter WagonTransporter with priority -1.0 for <REDACTED>
2016-08-18 16:06:44.666 [DEBUG] Using connector BasicRepositoryConnector with priority 0.0 for <REDACTED>
2016-08-18 16:06:44.666 [INFO] Downloading: <REDACTED>/org/eclipse/scout/maven_rt_plugin_config-master/2.0.7/maven_rt_plugin_config-master-2.0.7-site_en.xml
2016-08-18 16:06:45.289 [DEBUG] Writing tracking file /home/<REDACTED>/workspace/org.eclipse.scout.rt.branch-6.0_nightly-sitedocs/.repository/org/eclipse/scout/maven_rt_plugin_config-master/2.0.7/maven_rt_plugin_config-master-2.0.7-site_en.xml.lastUpdated
2016-08-18 16:06:45.597 [ERROR] Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-site-plugin:3.5.1:site (default-cli) on project org.eclipse.scout.rt: SiteToolException: The site descriptor cannot be resolved from the repository: ArtifactResolutionException: Unable to locate site descriptor: Could not transfer artifact org.eclipse.scout:maven_rt_plugin_config-master:xml:site_en:2.0.7 from/to AAA.libs.release (<REDACTED>): Access denied to: <REDACTED>/org/eclipse/scout/maven_rt_plugin_config-master/2.0.7/maven_rt_plugin_config-master-2.0.7-site_en.xml , ReasonPhrase:Forbidden.
2016-08-18 16:06:45.598 [ERROR] org.eclipse.scout:maven_rt_plugin_config-master:xml:2.0.7
2016-08-18 16:06:45.598 [ERROR] 
2016-08-18 16:06:45.598 [ERROR] from the specified remote repositories:
2016-08-18 16:06:45.598 [ERROR] AAA.libs.release (<REDACTED>, releases=true, snapshots=false),
2016-08-18 16:06:45.599 [ERROR] AAA.libs.snapshots (<REDACTED>, releases=false, snapshots=true),
2016-08-18 16:06:45.599 [ERROR] eclipse.release (https://repo.eclipse.org/content/groups/releases/, releases=true, snapshots=false),
2016-08-18 16:06:45.599 [ERROR] eclipse.snapshot (https://repo.eclipse.org/content/groups/snapshots/, releases=true, snapshots=true),
2016-08-18 16:06:45.599 [ERROR] remote-repos (<REDACTED>, releases=true, snapshots=false)

As you can see, it tries to download the maven_rt_plugin_config-master-2.0.7-site_en.xml, which in fact does not exist. There however does exist such an xml without the _en suffix...

I have specified no locales as far as I can see and there seem to be no changes in the parent project related to site or javadoc generation.

Why does Maven not fall back to the default locale?

Answer 1

A workaround that causes the site plugin to skip looking for the missing file is to create your own site.xml site descriptor with the combine.self attribute set to override:

<project name="Your-Service" combine.self="override">
    ...
</project>

This file should live at src/site/site.xml