Why valid version of maven-sonar-plugin couldn't be found? - maven

Question

We are using maven 2.2.1 and the compatible sonar-maven-plugin is 1.0, Sonarqube 4.0
Sometimes the builds are getting failed and when we checked the logs, we have come across with this strange error
+ Error stacktraces are turned on.
[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO] Searching repository for plugin with prefix: 'sonar'.
[INFO] org.apache.maven.plugins: checking for updates from central
[INFO] org.apache.maven.plugins: checking for updates from snapshots
[INFO] org.codehaus.mojo: checking for updates from central
[INFO] org.codehaus.mojo: checking for updates from snapshots
[INFO] artifact org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-sonar-plugin: checking for updates from central
[INFO] artifact org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-sonar-plugin: checking for updates from snapshots
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ERROR] BUILD ERROR
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] The plugin 'org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-sonar-plugin' does not exist or no valid version could be found
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Trace
org.apache.maven.lifecycle.LifecycleExecutionException: The plugin 'org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-sonar-plugin' does not exist or no valid version could be found
at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.verifyPlugin(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:1569)
at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.getMojoDescriptor(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:1851)
at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.segmentTaskListByAggregationNeeds(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:462)
at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.execute(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:175)
at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.doExecute(DefaultMaven.java:328)
at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.execute(DefaultMaven.java:138)
at org.apache.maven.cli.MavenCli.main(MavenCli.java:362)
at org.apache.maven.cli.compat.CompatibleMain.main(CompatibleMain.java:60)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.launchEnhanced(Launcher.java:315)
at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.launch(Launcher.java:255)
at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.mainWithExitCode(Launcher.java:430)
at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.main(Launcher.java:375)
Caused by: org.apache.maven.plugin.version.PluginVersionNotFoundException: The plugin 'org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-sonar-plugin' does not exist or no valid version could be found
at org.apache.maven.plugin.version.DefaultPluginVersionManager.resolvePluginVersion(DefaultPluginVersionManager.java:229)
at org.apache.maven.plugin.version.DefaultPluginVersionManager.resolvePluginVersion(DefaultPluginVersionManager.java:91)
at org.apache.maven.plugin.DefaultPluginManager.verifyPlugin(DefaultPluginManager.java:179)
at org.apache.maven.plugin.DefaultPluginManager.loadPluginDescriptor(DefaultPluginManager.java:1642)
at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.verifyPlugin(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:1540)
... 15 more
so we went to the location org/codehaus/mojo and then found that the maven-metadata-central.xml has the below content.
xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?
<metadata />
that is there is nothing mentioned about sonar-maven-plugin in the xml file , Prefix: sonar etc...
Tried doing the below:
We added that(sonar-maven-plugin, prefix) in the xml files(central and snapshot), saved it and relaunched the build, then the build got success for 2days.
Now Again the same error appears!!!
According to me some file/program is modifying this xml file.
could anyone tell me what is that file that is modifying that xml ?
And also why is the data in that xml erased? does it happen everytime the job is triggered?
Does artifactory has anything to do with this?
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

You're certainly facing an issue which relates to http://jira.codehaus.org/browse/MNG-4001 (see Sonar FAQ [1]).
delete the org/codehaus/mojo directory from .m2 repository as well as remote repository from which it is downloading.
http://comments.gmane.org/gmane.comp.java.sonar.general/5010
hope this helps.