Maven surefire could not find ForkedBooter class

Question

Recently coming to a new project, I'm trying to compile our source code. Everything worked fine yesterday, but today is another story.

Every time I'm running mvn clean install on a module, once reaching the tests, it crashes into an error:

[INFO] --- maven-surefire-plugin:2.18.1:test (default-test) @ recorder ---
[INFO] Surefire report directory: /lhome/code/recorder/target/surefire-reports
[INFO] Using configured provider org.apache.maven.surefire.junitcore.JUnitCoreProvider
[INFO] parallel='none', perCoreThreadCount=true, threadCount=0, useUnlimitedThreads=false, threadCountSuites=0,     threadCountClasses=0, threadCountMethods=0, parallelOptimized=true

-------------------------------------------------------
 T E S T S
-------------------------------------------------------
Error: Could not find or load main class org.apache.maven.surefire.booter.ForkedBooter

Results :

Tests run: 0, Failures: 0, Errors: 0, Skipped: 0

and later on:

[ERROR] Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-surefire-plugin:2.18.1:test (default-test) on project recorder: Execution default-test of goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-surefire-plugin:2.18.1:test failed: The forked VM terminated without properly saying goodbye. VM crash or System.exit called?

I'm running on Debian 9 (Stretch) 64-bits with OpenJDK 1.8.0_181, Maven 3.5.4, working behind my company proxy which I configured in my ~/.m2/settings.xml.

A strange thing it that the latest Surefire version is 2.22.1 if I remember correctly. I tried to specify the plugin version, but it does not get updated, otherwise there's no plugin version specification in any POM (parent, grand-parent or this one).

I managed to force Maven to change the Surefire version to the latest, but now it's even worse:

[INFO] -------------------------------------------------------
[INFO]  T E S T S
[INFO] -------------------------------------------------------
[INFO]
[INFO] Results:
[INFO]
[INFO] Tests run: 0, Failures: 0, Errors: 0, Skipped: 0

[...]

[ERROR] Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-surefire-plugin:2.22.1:test (default-test) on project recorder:     There are test failures.
[ERROR]
[ERROR] Please refer to /lhome/code/recorder/target/surefire-reports for the individual test results.
[ERROR] Please refer to dump files (if any exist) [date].dump, [date]-jvmRun[N].dump and [date].dumpstream.
[ERROR] The forked VM terminated without properly saying goodbye. VM crash or System.exit called?
[ERROR] Command was /bin/sh -c cd /lhome/code/recorder/ && /usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin/java     '-javaagent:/lhome1/johndoe/.m2/repository/org/jacoco/org.jacoco.agent/0.7.4.201502262128/org.jacoco.agent-0.7.4.201502262128-runt    ime.jar=destfile=/lhome/code/recorder/target/jacoco.exec,append=true,includes=esa/*,excludes=**/api/**/*.class' -jar     /lhome/code/recorder/target/surefire/surefirebooter7426165516226884923.jar /lhome/code/recorder/target/surefire     2018-10-26T16-16-12_829-jvmRun1 surefire1721866559613511529tmp surefire_023400764142672144tmp
[ERROR] Error occurred in starting fork, check output in log
[ERROR] Process Exit Code: 1
[ERROR] org.apache.maven.surefire.booter.SurefireBooterForkException: The forked VM terminated without properly saying goodbye.     VM crash or System.exit called?
[ERROR] Command was /bin/sh -c cd /lhome/code/recorder/ && /usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-amd64/jre/bin/java     '-javaagent:/lhome1/johndoe/.m2/repository/org/jacoco/org.jacoco.agent/0.7.4.201502262128/org.jacoco.agent-0.7.4.201502262128-runt    ime.jar=destfile=/lhome/code/recorder/target/jacoco.exec,append=true,includes=esa/*,excludes=**/api/**/*.class' -jar     /lhome/code/recorder/target/surefire/surefirebooter7426165516226884923.jar /lhome/code/recorder/target/surefire     2018-10-26T16-16-12_829-jvmRun1 surefire1721866559613511529tmp surefire_023400764142672144tmp
[ERROR] Error occurred in starting fork, check output in log
[ERROR] Process Exit Code: 1
[ERROR]     at org.apache.maven.plugin.surefire.booterclient.ForkStarter.fork(ForkStarter.java:669)
[ERROR]     at org.apache.maven.plugin.surefire.booterclient.ForkStarter.run(ForkStarter.java:282)
[ERROR]     at org.apache.maven.plugin.surefire.booterclient.ForkStarter.run(ForkStarter.java:245)
[ERROR]     at org.apache.maven.plugin.surefire.AbstractSurefireMojo.executeProvider(AbstractSurefireMojo.java:1183)
[ERROR]     at     org.apache.maven.plugin.surefire.AbstractSurefireMojo.executeAfterPreconditionsChecked(AbstractSurefireMojo.java:1011)
[ERROR]     at org.apache.maven.plugin.surefire.AbstractSurefireMojo.execute(AbstractSurefireMojo.java:857)
[ERROR]     at org.apache.maven.plugin.DefaultBuildPluginManager.executeMojo(DefaultBuildPluginManager.java:137)
[ERROR]     at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.internal.MojoExecutor.execute(MojoExecutor.java:208)
[ERROR]     at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.internal.MojoExecutor.execute(MojoExecutor.java:154)
[ERROR]     at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.internal.MojoExecutor.execute(MojoExecutor.java:146)
[ERROR]     at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.internal.LifecycleModuleBuilder.buildProject(LifecycleModuleBuilder.java:117)
[ERROR]     at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.internal.LifecycleModuleBuilder.buildProject(LifecycleModuleBuilder.java:81)
[ERROR]     at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.internal.builder.singlethreaded.SingleThreadedBuilder.build(SingleThreadedBuilder.java:56)
[ERROR]     at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.internal.LifecycleStarter.execute(LifecycleStarter.java:128)
[ERROR]     at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.doExecute(DefaultMaven.java:305)
[ERROR]     at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.doExecute(DefaultMaven.java:192)
[ERROR]     at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.execute(DefaultMaven.java:105)
[ERROR]     at org.apache.maven.cli.MavenCli.execute(MavenCli.java:954)
[ERROR]     at org.apache.maven.cli.MavenCli.doMain(MavenCli.java:288)
[ERROR]     at org.apache.maven.cli.MavenCli.main(MavenCli.java:192)
[ERROR]     at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
[ERROR]     at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
[ERROR]     at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
[ERROR]     at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:498)
[ERROR]     at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.launcher.Launcher.launchEnhanced(Launcher.java:289)
[ERROR]     at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.launcher.Launcher.launch(Launcher.java:229)
[ERROR]     at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.launcher.Launcher.mainWithExitCode(Launcher.java:415)
[ERROR]     at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.launcher.Launcher.main(Launcher.java:356)

Answer 1

To fix it (in 2018), update your openjdk to the latest version, at least 8u191-b12. In case this issue reappears in 2020, it is likely that the default behavior of openjdk was changed, and you will then need to update the maven surefire plugin.

This was a now fixed bug in the openjdk-8 package (behaviour deviates from upstream significantly without need; missing the upstream patch to revert back to disabling a security check) that you just upgraded to. But it is also a bug in the surefire plugin, SUREFIRE-1588, supposedly fixed in surefire 3.0.0-M1: it apparently is using absolute paths in a place where Java will in the future only allow relative path names (and Debian activated the future behavior already).

The package version 8u181-b13-2 states:

• Apply patches from 8u191-b12 security update.

Note that 191-b12 != 181-b13. The 191-b12 security patches were just out a few days ago, and apparently the maintainers wanted to get them to you fast. Updating completely to 191-b12 will likely need additional testing (well, so should have this upload, apparently).

There had been several workaounds:

1. You can install the previous package from snapshots.d.o instead. After downgrading, you can forbid the broken version (if you are using aptitude and not apt) using sudo aptitude forbid-version openjdk-8-jre-headless. For regular "apt" I didn't see a similar forbid mechanism, so you would likely need to use apt pinning to prevent this upgrade from being reinstalled (or you just keep on downgrading again, I hope this will be resolved soon).
2. According to bug tracking, setting the property -Djdk.net.URLClassPath.disableClassPathURLCheck=true with any of the usual methods (e.g., JAVA_FLAGS) should also help. But I have not verified this myself. You can apparently even add the workaround to ~/.m2/settings.xml to get it enabled for all your Maven builds easily.

As you can see, bug tracking works, the issue was narrowed down, and a fixed package is available and a new version of the surefire plugin will come soon!

Answer 2

Set useSystemClassloader to false:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
    <configuration>
        <useSystemClassLoader>false</useSystemClassLoader>
    </configuration>
</plugin>

If you're not inheriting from a parent which has version defined for you (such as the Spring Boot starter) you'll need to define that as well.