What causes "an unknown compilation problem occurred"?

Question

When trying to compile my project using Maven, I get the following error: An unknown compilation problem occurred.

I tried running the following command to get more details on the error, but I still can't figure it out: mvn -e -X clean install

This is the log I got:

[INFO] -------------------------------------------------------------
[ERROR] COMPILATION ERROR : 
[INFO] -------------------------------------------------------------
[ERROR] An unknown compilation problem occurred
[INFO] 1 error
[INFO] -------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Reactor Summary:
[INFO] 
[INFO] app ................................................ SUCCESS [  2.033 s]
[INFO] models ............................................. SUCCESS [  4.418 s]
[INFO] authorization-db ................................... SUCCESS [  1.654 s]
[INFO] test-utils ......................................... SUCCESS [  0.721 s]
[INFO] clients ............................................ SUCCESS [  7.412 s]
[INFO] data-access ........................................ FAILURE [  3.289 s]
[INFO] templating ......................................... SKIPPED
[INFO] guice-vertx ........................................ SKIPPED
[INFO] routing ............................................ SKIPPED
[INFO] frontend-tests ..................................... SKIPPED
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD FAILURE
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 19.756 s
[INFO] Finished at: 2019-06-18T11:00:07+01:00
[INFO] Final Memory: 53M/190M
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ERROR] Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-compiler-plugin:3.1:compile (default-compile) on project data-access: Compilation failure
[ERROR] An unknown compilation problem occurred
[ERROR] -> [Help 1]
org.apache.maven.lifecycle.LifecycleExecutionException: Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-compiler-plugin:3.1:compile (default-compile) on project data-access: Compilation failure
An unknown compilation problem occurred

    at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.internal.MojoExecutor.execute(MojoExecutor.java:212)
    at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.internal.MojoExecutor.execute(MojoExecutor.java:153)
    at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.internal.MojoExecutor.execute(MojoExecutor.java:145)
    at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.internal.LifecycleModuleBuilder.buildProject(LifecycleModuleBuilder.java:116)
    at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.internal.LifecycleModuleBuilder.buildProject(LifecycleModuleBuilder.java:80)
    at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.internal.builder.singlethreaded.SingleThreadedBuilder.build(SingleThreadedBuilder.java:51)
    at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.internal.LifecycleStarter.execute(LifecycleStarter.java:128)
    at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.doExecute(DefaultMaven.java:307)
    at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.doExecute(DefaultMaven.java:193)
    at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.execute(DefaultMaven.java:106)
    at org.apache.maven.cli.MavenCli.execute(MavenCli.java:863)
    at org.apache.maven.cli.MavenCli.doMain(MavenCli.java:288)
    at org.apache.maven.cli.MavenCli.main(MavenCli.java:199)
    at java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
    at java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
    at java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
    at java.base/java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:566)
    at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.launcher.Launcher.launchEnhanced(Launcher.java:289)
    at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.launcher.Launcher.launch(Launcher.java:229)
    at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.launcher.Launcher.mainWithExitCode(Launcher.java:415)
    at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.launcher.Launcher.main(Launcher.java:356)
    at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.main(Launcher.java:47)
Caused by: org.apache.maven.plugin.compiler.CompilationFailureException: Compilation failure
An unknown compilation problem occurred

    at org.apache.maven.plugin.compiler.AbstractCompilerMojo.execute(AbstractCompilerMojo.java:858)
    at org.apache.maven.plugin.compiler.CompilerMojo.execute(CompilerMojo.java:129)
    at org.apache.maven.plugin.DefaultBuildPluginManager.executeMojo(DefaultBuildPluginManager.java:134)
    at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.internal.MojoExecutor.execute(MojoExecutor.java:207)
    ... 21 more
[ERROR] 
[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
[ERROR] 
[ERROR] After correcting the problems, you can resume the build with the command
[ERROR]   mvn <goals> -rf :data-access

EDIT: This is the pom.xml file of the data-access module:

<?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>

  <parent>
    <groupId>com.some.app</groupId>
    <artifactId>app</artifactId>
    <version>1.0-SNAPSHOT</version>
  </parent>

  <artifactId>data-access</artifactId>
  <packaging>jar</packaging>

  <dependencies>

    <dependency>
      <groupId>com.some.app</groupId>
      <artifactId>authorization-db</artifactId>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
      <groupId>com.englishtown.vertx</groupId>
      <artifactId>vertx-guice</artifactId>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.mockito</groupId>
      <artifactId>mockito-core</artifactId>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
      <groupId>io.vertx</groupId>
      <artifactId>vertx-core</artifactId>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
      <groupId>io.vertx</groupId>
      <artifactId>vertx-web</artifactId>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
      <groupId>com.google.guava</groupId>
      <artifactId>guava</artifactId>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.apache.commons</groupId>
      <artifactId>commons-lang3</artifactId>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
      <groupId>junit</groupId>
      <artifactId>junit</artifactId>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
      <groupId>io.vertx</groupId>
      <artifactId>testtools</artifactId>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
      <groupId>io.vertx</groupId>
      <artifactId>vertx-unit</artifactId>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
      <groupId>io.vertx</groupId>
      <artifactId>vertx-codetrans</artifactId>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
      <groupId>io.vertx</groupId>
      <artifactId>vertx-rx-java</artifactId>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
      <groupId>com.some.app</groupId>
      <artifactId>clients</artifactId>
      <version>${project.version}</version>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
      <groupId>com.some.app</groupId>
      <artifactId>models</artifactId>
      <version>${project.version}</version>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
      <groupId>com.some.app</groupId>
      <artifactId>test-utils</artifactId>
      <version>${project.version}</version>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.apache.commons</groupId>
      <artifactId>commons-csv</artifactId>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
      <groupId>com.fasterxml.jackson.dataformat</groupId>
      <artifactId>jackson-dataformat-yaml</artifactId>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
      <groupId>com.google.zxing</groupId>
      <artifactId>core</artifactId>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
      <groupId>com.google.zxing</groupId>
      <artifactId>javase</artifactId>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
      <groupId>com.itextpdf</groupId>
      <artifactId>itextpdf</artifactId>
    </dependency>

    <dependency>
      <groupId>org.apache.poi</groupId>
      <artifactId>poi-ooxml</artifactId>
      <version>3.17</version>
    </dependency>
  </dependencies>


  <build>
    <plugins>
      <plugin>
        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
        <artifactId>maven-deploy-plugin</artifactId>
        <configuration>
          <skip>true</skip>
        </configuration>
      </plugin>
    </plugins>
  </build>

</project>

EDIT 2: Maven compiler plugin configuration on root pom.xml:

...

<properties>
  <maven-compiler-plugin.version>3.1</maven-compiler-plugin.version>
  <java.version>11</java.version>
</properties>

...

<plugin>
  <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
  <version>${maven-compiler-plugin.version}</version>
  <configuration>
    <source>${java.version}</source>
    <target>${java.version}</target>
  </configuration>
</plugin>

...

To note that this compilation problem started happening after I migrated the Java version in the project from 1.8 to 11.

Answer 1

You are using the maven compiler plugin and it is a fight to use correct version compatibility between maven, JDK, and this plug-in. In my case, reason of the issue was, I was using jdk-8u291-windows-x64 instead of jdk-8u211-windows-x64.

Answer 2

I was facing same issue. I was able to get rid of this issue after removing

<compilerArgument>-Werror</compilerArgument>

line from maven compiler plugin configuration in pom.xml file.

maven-compiler-plugin configuration before removing above line:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>3.3</version>
    <configuration>
        <encoding>UTF-8</encoding>
        <source>1.8</source>
        <target>1.8</target>
        <compilerArgument>-Werror</compilerArgument>
    </configuration>
</plugin>

maven-compiler-plugin configuration after removing above line:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>3.3</version>
    <configuration>
        <encoding>UTF-8</encoding>
        <source>1.8</source>
        <target>1.8</target>
    </configuration>
</plugin>

Answer 3

You are using old version of maven plugin (3.1) to compile your code. To compile java 11 code using maven please use maven plugin with below configuration:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>3.8.0</version>
    <configuration>
        <release>11</release>
    </configuration>
</plugin>

Answer 4

Follow steps are given below,

1) Run as Maven clean
2) Go to Project(top bar in eclipse) and clean it
3) Run as Maven install

(Sometimes need to clean twice in eclipse before run mvn install) Hope this will help.