maven... Failed to clean project: Failed to delete ..\org.ow2.util.asm-asm-tree-3.1.jar

Question

Stop your server before you start to clean.

Stopping a server

You can stop the server from the Servers view.

To stop the server:

1. In the Servers view ( Window > Show View > Other > Server > Servers > OK), select the server that you want to stop.
2. Click the Stop the server icon in the toolbar. In the Servers view, the status of the server changes to Stopped.

3. If for some reason the server fails to stop, you can terminate the process as follows:

   a. Switch to the Debug perspective.

   b. In the Process view, select the server process that you want to stop.

   c. Click the Terminate icon in the toolbar.

Note: When terminating a server, the server process will end and the server will not go through the normal routine of stopping, for example calling the destroy() method on a servlet.

Source: Eclipse Help

You may also try try -Dmaven.clean.failOnError=false (from Maven FAQ)

Delete the java.exe process in Task Manager and run mvn clean install.It worked for me.

Your problem is that a running process within STS is using files located in your target directory while you execute a mvn clean command. Maven will be unable to delete these files (since other processes are still accessing them) and thus fail with that error.

Try to stop all processes (tests, servers, applications) from within STS before running Maven console commands. Look out: This behaviour might also appear if STS is cleaning up the projects and thus re-compiles the sources, and not running a process.