Maven 3: Maven in 5 minutes "mvn archetype:generate..." command NOT WORKING

Question

I installed Maven 3.1.1 for the first time. In the "Maven in 5 Minutes" getting-started guide

http://maven.apache.org/guides/getting-started/maven-in-five-minutes.html

it says to verify the installation with

mvn --version

I got the expected response:

Apache Maven 3.1.1 (0728685237757ffbf44136acec0402957f723d9a; 2013-09-17 11:22:22-0400)
Maven home: C:\applications\programming\apache-maven-3.1.1
Java version: 1.6.0_17, vendor: Sun Microsystems Inc.
Java home: C:\applications\programming\java_6_17\jre
Default locale: en_US, platform encoding: Cp1252
OS name: "windows 7", version: "6.1", arch: "x86", family: "windows"

In the next step, under "Creating a project" it says to create a new directory, open a command prompt in that directory, and execute

mvn archetype:generate -DgroupId=com.mycompany.app -DartifactId=my-app -DarchetypeArtifactId=maven-archetype-quickstart -DinteractiveMode=false

I created a directory called xjmaven, ran the command in it, and it's not working. This is the response:

[R:\jeffy\programming\sandbox\xjmaven]mvn archetype:generate -DgroupId=xbnjava -DartifactId=XBN-Java -Darchetype ArtifactId=maven-archetype-quickstart -DinteractiveMode=false
[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD FAILURE
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 0.251s
[INFO] Finished at: Sat Nov 23 12:11:56 EST 2013
[INFO] Final Memory: 2M/4M
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ERROR] The goal you specified requires a project to execute but there is no POM in this directory (R:\jeffy\programming\sandbox\xjmaven). Please verify you invoked Maven from the correct directory. -> [Help 1]
[ERROR]
[ERROR] To see the full stack trace of the errors, re-run Maven with the -e switch.
[ERROR] Re-run Maven using the -X switch to enable full debug logging.
[ERROR]
[ERROR] For more information about the errors and possible solutions, please read the following articles:
[ERROR] [Help 1] http://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/MAVEN/MissingProjectException

I looked up the parameters groupId, artifactId and archetypeArtifactId, and have tried some different values (as you can see above), but I still get the same BUILD FAILURE response.

I manually put the pom.xml file (from in the same webpage) in the xjmaven directory, and ran it again. It downloaded a bunch of stuff (although not to xjmaven), but then failed with this message:

[INFO] Generating project in Interactive mode
Downloading: http://repo.maven.apache.org/maven2/org/apache/maven/archetypes/true/1.0/true-1.0.jar
[INFO]
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Skipping Maven Quick Start Archetype
[INFO] This project has been banned from the build due to previous failures.
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD FAILURE
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 45.047s
[INFO] Finished at: Sat Nov 23 12:04:01 EST 2013
[INFO] Final Memory: 7M/17M
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ERROR] Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-archetype-plugin:2.2:generate (default-cli) on project XBN-Java: The desired archetype does not exist (org.apache.maven.archetypes:true:1.0) -> [Help 1]
[ERROR]
[ERROR] To see the full stack trace of the errors, re-run Maven with the -e switch.
[ERROR] Re-run Maven using the -X switch to enable full debug logging.
[ERROR]
[ERROR] For more information about the errors and possible solutions, please read the following articles:
[ERROR] [Help 1] http://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/MAVEN/MojoFailureException

Repeating the command gives this response:

[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO]
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Building Maven Quick Start Archetype 1.0-SNAPSHOT
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO]
[INFO] >>> maven-archetype-plugin:2.2:generate (default-cli) @ XBN-Java >>>
[INFO]
[INFO] <<< maven-archetype-plugin:2.2:generate (default-cli) @ XBN-Java <<<
[INFO]
[INFO] --- maven-archetype-plugin:2.2:generate (default-cli) @ XBN-Java ---
[INFO] Generating project in Interactive mode
[INFO]
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Skipping Maven Quick Start Archetype
[INFO] This project has been banned from the build due to previous failures.
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD FAILURE
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 4.444s
[INFO] Finished at: Sat Nov 23 12:04:32 EST 2013
[INFO] Final Memory: 8M/14M
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ERROR] Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-archetype-plugin:2.2:generate (default-cli) on project XBN-Java: The desired archetype does not exist (org.apache.maven.archetypes:true:1.0) -> [Help 1]
[ERROR]
[ERROR] To see the full stack trace of the errors, re-run Maven with the -e switch.
[ERROR] Re-run Maven using the -X switch to enable full debug logging.
[ERROR]
[ERROR] For more information about the errors and possible solutions, please read the following articles:
[ERROR] [Help 1] http://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/MAVEN/MojoFailureException

I deleted pom.xml (it's the only file in the directory...the stuff it downloaded is not there), and started over again. Everything happens (badly) as I write above.

---

I remember trying Maven a few years ago, and could also not get past the getting-started stage.

If anyone has some advice on how to get past this, it would be appreciated. Really frustrated.

Answer 1

I was having a similar issue on powershell. I switched to command prompt and executed the same command and it works fine. Command that works on command prompt: mvn archetype:generate -DgroupId=com.myapp-DartifactId=hellomaven -DarchetypeArtifactId=maven-archetype-quickstart -DinteractiveMode=false

The one that runs on powershell: mvn archetype:generate "-DarchetypeGroupId=org.apache.maven.archetypes" "-DgroupId=com.myapp" "-DartifactId=my-app"

Answer 2

Maybe you are using Windows PowerShell?

If so, you'll need to put quotes around the parameter definitions:

mvn archetype:generate "-DarchetypeGroupId=org.apache.maven.archetypes" "-DgroupId=com.mycompany.app" "-DartifactId=my-app"

Answer 3

You have some syntactical errors while executing the generate goal. Moreover, you need not create the pom.xml or any dir sturcture. You will notice that the generate goal creates a directory with the same name given as the artifactId.

e.g. you are missing the convention like -DgroupId should be com.company.app (not a big issue though), having space in -Darchetype ArtifactId, etc.

I just tried below and it worked :

mvn archetype:generate -DgroupId=com.mycompany.app -DartifactId=my-app -DarchetypeArtifactId=maven-archetype-quickstart -DinteractiveMode=false