Maven/Junit Parallel Execution - Cucumber-JVM v4.0.0 - maven

Question

I'm struggling to get the new parallel execution feature of Cucumber-JVM v4.0.0 working with JUnit/Maven.
As specified here, if you configure <parallel> and <threadCount> accordingly in your POM, and use dependency injection to share state (I'm using Pico Continer) then your Cucumber features should execute in parallel.
However, it is still only executing one feature at a time when i run Maven.
I've included my complete POM below - Can anybody help?
<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>com.softwareautomation</groupId>
<artifactId>selenium</artifactId>
<version>0.0.1-SNAPSHOT</version>
<packaging>jar</packaging>
<name>selenium</name>
<url>http://maven.apache.org</url>
<build>
<plugins>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-compiler-plugin</artifactId>
<version>3.8.0</version>
<configuration>
<source>1.8</source>
<target>1.8</target>
</configuration>
</plugin>
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.12.4</version>
<configuration>
<parallel>both</parallel>
<threadCount>4</threadCount>
</configuration>
</plugin>
</plugins>
</build>
<dependencies>
<!-- AssertJ -->
<dependency>
<groupId>org.assertj</groupId>
<artifactId>assertj-core</artifactId>
<version>3.11.1</version>
<scope>test</scope>
</dependency>
<!-- Cucumber -->
<dependency>
<groupId>io.cucumber</groupId>
<artifactId>cucumber-java</artifactId>
<version>4.0.0</version>
<scope>test</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>io.cucumber</groupId>
<artifactId>cucumber-junit</artifactId>
<version>4.0.0</version>
<scope>test</scope>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>io.cucumber</groupId>
<artifactId>cucumber-picocontainer</artifactId>
<version>4.0.0</version>
<scope>test</scope>
</dependency>
<!-- JUnit -->
<dependency>
<groupId>junit</groupId>
<artifactId>junit</artifactId>
<version>4.12</version>
<scope>test</scope>
</dependency>
<!-- Selenium WebDriver -->
<dependency>
<groupId>org.seleniumhq.selenium</groupId>
<artifactId>selenium-java</artifactId>
<version>3.11.0</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
If it helps, below is my runner class (com.softwareautomation.world is the DI class)
package com.evasoftwareautomation.runners;
import org.junit.runner.RunWith;
import cucumber.api.CucumberOptions;
import cucumber.api.junit.Cucumber;
#RunWith(Cucumber.class)
#CucumberOptions(
plugin = {"pretty", "html:target/cucumber", "junit:target/cucumber.xml"},
features = "src/test/resources/com/softwareautomation/features",
glue = {"com.softwareautomation.stepdefs", "com.softwareautomation.world"},
junit ={ "--step-notifications"},
monochrome = true)
public class CucumberTest {
}
Please see failing stack trace when running from Maven below:
-------------------------------------------------------
T E S T S
-------------------------------------------------------
Concurrency config is parallel='methods', perCoreThreadCount=true, threadCount=4, useUnlimitedThreads=false
org.apache.maven.surefire.util.SurefireReflectionException: java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException; nested exception is java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException: null
java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:498)
at org.apache.maven.surefire.util.ReflectionUtils.invokeMethodWithArray(ReflectionUtils.java:189)
at org.apache.maven.surefire.booter.ProviderFactory$ProviderProxy.invoke(ProviderFactory.java:165)
at org.apache.maven.surefire.booter.ProviderFactory.invokeProvider(ProviderFactory.java:85)
at org.apache.maven.surefire.booter.ForkedBooter.runSuitesInProcess(ForkedBooter.java:115)
at org.apache.maven.surefire.booter.ForkedBooter.main(ForkedBooter.java:75)
Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
at org.junit.runner.Description.createSuiteDescription(Description.java:124)
at org.apache.maven.surefire.common.junit48.FilterFactory$GroupMatcherCategoryFilter.shouldRun(FilterFactory.java:207)
at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.shouldRun(ParentRunner.java:434)
at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.filter(ParentRunner.java:382)
at org.junit.runner.manipulation.Filter.apply(Filter.java:97)
at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.filter(ParentRunner.java:384)
at org.junit.runner.manipulation.Filter.apply(Filter.java:97)
at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.filter(ParentRunner.java:384)
at org.junit.runner.manipulation.Filter.apply(Filter.java:97)
at org.junit.runners.ParentRunner.filter(ParentRunner.java:384)
at org.junit.runner.manipulation.Filter.apply(Filter.java:97)
at org.junit.internal.requests.FilterRequest.getRunner(FilterRequest.java:37)
at org.junit.runner.JUnitCore.run(JUnitCore.java:115)
at org.apache.maven.surefire.junitcore.JUnitCoreWrapper.execute(JUnitCoreWrapper.java:62)
at org.apache.maven.surefire.junitcore.JUnitCoreProvider.invoke(JUnitCoreProvider.java:139)
... 9 more
Results :
Tests run: 0, Failures: 0, Errors: 0, Skipped: 0
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] BUILD FAILURE
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 6.709 s
[INFO] Finished at: 2018-10-25T23:36:01+01:00
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ERROR] Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-surefire-plugin:2.12.4:test (default-test) on project selenium: Execution default-test of goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-surefire-plugin:2.12.4:test failed: The forked VM terminated without saying properly goodbye. VM crash or System.exit called ? -> [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/PluginExecutionException

Answer 1

at org.apache.maven.surefire.common.junit48.FilterFactory$GroupMatcherCategoryFilter.shouldRun(FilterFactory.java:207)
You are using JUnit 4.12. However as noted above the stack trace tells us that surefire is trying to use an integration for JUnit 4.8. Your version of surefire was released in 2012, where as JUnit 4.12 was released in 2014. Have you considered updating your maven surefire plugin?

Answer 2

I managed to get it to work by explicitly adding the dependency of the testing framework:
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.22.2</version>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.surefire</groupId>
<artifactId>surefire-junit47</artifactId>
<version>2.22.2</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
<configuration>
<parallel>all</parallel>
<threadCount>4</threadCount>
</configuration>
</plugin>

Answer 3

Leaving it here as it might help somebody else
In my case
maven was not picking up Junit 5 tests
cucumber tests were not running in parallel
Got it working by
adding junit-jupiter 5.5.2
adding maven-surefire-plugin 2.22.2 and explicitly adding
surefire-junit47 2.22.2
<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
<version>2.22.2</version>
<dependencies>
<dependency>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.surefire</groupId>
<artifactId>surefire-junit47</artifactId>
<version>2.22.2</version>
</dependency>
</dependencies>
<configuration>
<parallel>both</parallel>
<threadCount>4</threadCount>
</configuration>
</plugin>

Answer 4

In my case, I was using surefire 2.12.4 and updating it to 2.22.2 did the trick