Maven ExecutionException The forked VM terminated without properly saying goodbye. VM crash or System.exit called

Question

I am using geb spock maven, with surefire version 2.22.0 on ubuntu. Till 2 weeks back it was working fine, but suddenly I am gettig ExecutionException The forked VM terminated without properly saying goodbye. VM crash or System.exit called? error. Below is my configuration:

Maven Version: Apache Maven 3.6.0 
Java version: openjdk version "1.8.0_181"
M3_HOME : /opt/maven

When I hit mvn -Dtest="some test " test command it throws below error:

ExecutionException The forked VM terminated without properly saying goodbye. VM crash or System.exit called?
Command was /bin/sh -c cd /home/web/workspace/Durgesh_Delete1 && /usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin/java -jar /home/web/workspace/Durgesh_Delete1/target/surefire/surefirebooter1782527278200611298.jar /home/web/workspace/Durgesh_Delete1/target/surefire 2018-11-16T11-10-54_226-jvmRun3 surefire2754275980317815656tmp surefire_01299389042676135686tmp
Error occurred in starting fork, check output in log
Process Exit Code: 1

Below is my complete pom.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0"
         xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance"
         xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/maven-4.0.0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>

    <groupId>net.digital.web</groupId>
    <artifactId>edge_bdd_automation</artifactId>
    <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
    <packaging>jar</packaging>

    <properties>
        <skipITTests>false</skipITTests>
        <geb.version>2.1</geb.version>
        <selenium.version>3.12.0</selenium.version>
        <groovy.version>2.4.15</groovy.version>
        <spock.version>1.1-groovy-2.4</spock.version>
        <gson.version>2.8.2</gson.version>
        <httpclient.version>4.3.4</httpclient.version>
        <httpcore.version>4.3.2</httpcore.version>
        <surefire.plugin.version>2.22.0</surefire.plugin.version>
        <project.build.sourceEncoding>UTF-8</project.build.sourceEncoding>
        <project.reporting.outputEncoding>UTF-8</project.reporting.outputEncoding>
        <!-- Groovy compiler for Spock/Geb tests -->
        <version.groovy-eclipse-compiler>2.9.2-01</version.groovy-eclipse-compiler>
        <version.groovy-eclipse-batch>2.4.3-01</version.groovy-eclipse-batch>
    </properties>

    <repositories>
        <repository>
            <snapshots>
                <enabled>false</enabled>
            </snapshots>
            <id>central</id>
            <name>bintray</name>
            <url>http://jcenter.bintray.com</url>
        </repository>
    </repositories>

    <pluginRepositories>
        <pluginRepository>
            <snapshots>
                <enabled>false</enabled>
            </snapshots>
            <id>central</id>
            <name>bintray-plugins</name>
            <url>http://jcenter.bintray.com</url>
        </pluginRepository>
    </pluginRepositories>

    <dependencies>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>junit</groupId>
            <artifactId>junit</artifactId>
            <version>4.12</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.spockframework</groupId>
            <artifactId>spock-core</artifactId>
            <version>${spock.version}</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
            <exclusions>
                <exclusion>
                    <groupId>org.codehaus.groovy</groupId>
                    <artifactId>groovy-all</artifactId>
                </exclusion>
            </exclusions>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.gebish</groupId>
            <artifactId>geb-spock</artifactId>
            <version>${geb.version}</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
        <!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.gebish/geb-core -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.gebish</groupId>
            <artifactId>geb-core</artifactId>
            <version>${geb.version}</version>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.seleniumhq.selenium</groupId>
            <artifactId>selenium-java</artifactId>
            <version>${selenium.version}</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
            <exclusions>
                <exclusion>
                    <groupId>com.google.code.gson</groupId>
                    <artifactId>gson</artifactId>
                </exclusion>
            </exclusions>
        </dependency>

        <!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/com.google.code.gson/gson -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.google.code.gson</groupId>
            <artifactId>gson</artifactId>
            <version>${gson.version}</version>
            <!--<scope>test</scope>-->
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.apache.httpcomponents</groupId>
            <artifactId>httpclient</artifactId>
            <version>${httpclient.version}</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.googlecode.json-simple</groupId>
            <artifactId>json-simple</artifactId>
            <version>1.1.1</version>
        </dependency>

        <!--Dependencies related to GEB SPOCK reporting-->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.athaydes</groupId>
            <artifactId>spock-reports</artifactId>
            <version>1.6.0</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
            <!-- this avoids affecting your version of Groovy/Spock -->
            <exclusions>
                <exclusion>
                    <groupId>*</groupId>
                    <artifactId>*</artifactId>
                </exclusion>
            </exclusions>
        </dependency>

        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.codehaus.groovy</groupId>
            <artifactId>groovy-all</artifactId>
            <version>${groovy.version}</version>
        </dependency>

        <!-- // if you don't already have slf4j-api and an implementation of it in the classpath, add this! -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
            <artifactId>slf4j-api</artifactId>
            <version>1.7.25</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.slf4j</groupId>
            <artifactId>slf4j-simple</artifactId>
            <version>1.7.25</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>

        <!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/org.hamcrest/hamcrest-core -->
        <!-- This dependency is for support of Junit latest version -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>org.hamcrest</groupId>
            <artifactId>hamcrest-core</artifactId>
            <version>1.3</version>
            <scope>test</scope>
        </dependency>

        <!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/ru.yandex.qatools.ashot/ashot -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>ru.yandex.qatools.ashot</groupId>
            <artifactId>ashot</artifactId>
            <version>1.5.4</version>
        </dependency>

        <!-- https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/com.codeborne/phantomjsdriver -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.codeborne</groupId>
            <artifactId>phantomjsdriver</artifactId>
            <version>1.4.4</version>
        </dependency>

        <!-- Geb - Spock Report -->
        <dependency>
            <groupId>com.aoe</groupId>
            <artifactId>geb-spock-reports</artifactId>
            <version>0.1.5</version>
            <type>pom</type>
        </dependency>

    </dependencies>

    <build>
        <plugins>

            <!-- Maven surefire plugin-->
            <!-- Uncommnet below for invoking parallel execution -->

            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>${surefire.plugin.version}</version>
                <dependencies>
                    &lt;!&ndash;SPOCK This is to force to use JUnit 4.7+ Runner &ndash;&gt;
                    <dependency>
                        <groupId>org.apache.maven.surefire</groupId>
                        <artifactId>surefire-junit47</artifactId>
                        <version>${surefire.plugin.version}</version>
                    </dependency>
                </dependencies>
                <configuration>
                    <skipTests>${skipITTests}</skipTests>
                    <includes>
                        <include>*Spec.*</include>
                    </includes>
                    <systemPropertyVariables>
                        <geb.build.reportsDir>target/test-reports/geb</geb.build.reportsDir>
                    </systemPropertyVariables>

                    <parallel>classes</parallel>
                    <forkCount>5</forkCount>
                    <reuseForks>false</reuseForks>
                    <useUnlimitedThreads>true</useUnlimitedThreads>
                </configuration>
            </plugin>




            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
                <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
                <version>3.6.0</version>
                <configuration>
                    <source>1.8</source>
                    <target>1.8</target>
                    <!-- IMPORTANT -->
                    <useIncrementalCompilation>false</useIncrementalCompilation>
                    <encoding>${project.build.sourceEncoding}</encoding>
                    <compilerId>groovy-eclipse-compiler</compilerId>
                </configuration>
                <dependencies>
                    <dependency>
                        <groupId>org.codehaus.groovy</groupId>
                        <artifactId>groovy-eclipse-compiler</artifactId>
                        <version>${version.groovy-eclipse-compiler}</version>
                    </dependency>
                    <dependency>
                        <groupId>org.codehaus.groovy</groupId>
                        <artifactId>groovy-eclipse-batch</artifactId>
                        <version>${version.groovy-eclipse-batch}</version>
                    </dependency>
                </dependencies>
            </plugin>
            <plugin>
                <groupId>org.codehaus.groovy</groupId>
                <artifactId>groovy-eclipse-compiler</artifactId>
                <version>${version.groovy-eclipse-compiler}</version>
                <extensions>true</extensions>
            </plugin>

        </plugins>
    </build>


</project>

Please look into this issue. Thanks

Answer 1

Finally, I am able to solve this by adding below line under configuration tag of surefire plugin:

<configuration>
    <useSystemClassLoader>false</useSystemClassLoader>
    <threadCount>1</threadCount>
</configuration>

This has been mentioned in the solution suggested by Rushby in above comment, unfortunately no one has voted that answer so was difficult to catch. Thanks!