title: Jenkins not showing maven compiler errors
body: <p>When building our multi-module maven 3 project in Jenkins, if there's a build error we get this cryptic message that the maven compiler plugin failed.  This only just started happening within the last week:</p>
  
  <pre><code>[INFO] BUILD FAILURE
  [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
  [INFO] Total time: 11:22.340s
  [INFO] Finished at: Fri Feb 10 09:44:02 CET 2012
  [INFO] Final Memory: 171M/318M
  [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
  mavenExecutionResult exceptions not empty
  message : Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-compiler-plugin:2.0.2:compile (default-compile) on project me.activity.impl: Compilation failure
  cause : Compilation failure
  Stack trace : 
  org.apache.maven.lifecycle.LifecycleExecutionException: Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-compiler-plugin:2.0.2:compile (default-compile) on project me.activity.impl: Compilation failure
      at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.internal.MojoExecutor.execute(MojoExecutor.java:213)
      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:84)
      at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.internal.LifecycleModuleBuilder.buildProject(LifecycleModuleBuilder.java:59)
      at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.internal.LifecycleStarter.singleThreadedBuild(LifecycleStarter.java:183)
      at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.internal.LifecycleStarter.execute(LifecycleStarter.java:161)
      at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.doExecute(DefaultMaven.java:320)
      at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.execute(DefaultMaven.java:156)
      at org.jvnet.hudson.maven3.launcher.Maven3Launcher.main(Maven3Launcher.java:79)
      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:585)
      at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.launcher.Launcher.launchStandard(Launcher.java:329)
      at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.launcher.Launcher.launch(Launcher.java:239)
      at org.jvnet.hudson.maven3.agent.Maven3Main.launch(Maven3Main.java:158)
      at hudson.maven.Maven3Builder.call(Maven3Builder.java:104)
      at hudson.maven.Maven3Builder.call(Maven3Builder.java:70)
      at hudson.remoting.UserRequest.perform(UserRequest.java:118)
      at hudson.remoting.UserRequest.perform(UserRequest.java:48)
      at hudson.remoting.Request$2.run(Request.java:287)
      at java.util.concurrent.Executors$RunnableAdapter.call(Executors.java:417)
      at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync.innerRun(FutureTask.java:269)
      at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:123)
      at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.runTask(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:650)
      at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:675)
      at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:595)
  Caused by: org.apache.maven.plugin.CompilationFailureException: Compilation failure
      at org.apache.maven.plugin.AbstractCompilerMojo.execute(AbstractCompilerMojo.java:516)
      at org.apache.maven.plugin.CompilerMojo.execute(CompilerMojo.java:114)
      at org.apache.maven.plugin.DefaultBuildPluginManager.executeMojo(DefaultBuildPluginManager.java:101)
      at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.internal.MojoExecutor.execute(MojoExecutor.java:209)
      ... 27 more
  Maven schlug mit Fehlern fehl.
  An attempt to send an e-mail to empty list of recipients, ignored.
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>When building from the command-line we get the normal build errors:</p>
  
  <pre><code>[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
  [INFO] BUILD FAILURE
  [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
  [INFO] Total time: 5:24.906s
  [INFO] Finished at: Fri Feb 10 08:17:31 EST 2012
  [INFO] Final Memory: 173M/328M
  [INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
  [ERROR] Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-compiler-plugin:2.3.2:compile (default-compile) on project me.activity.impl: Compilation failure: Compilation failure:
  [ERROR] \p4views\VM\Base\main\modules\activity\impl\src\main\java\com\sap\me\activity\impl\ExtensionConfigurationService.java:[1018,12] cannot find symbol
  [ERROR] symbol  : class ActivityRuntimeType
  [ERROR] location: class com.sap.me.activity.impl.ExtensionConfigurationService
  [ERROR] \p4views\VM\Base\main\modules\activity\impl\src\main\java\com\sap\me\activity\impl\ExtensionConfigurationService.java:[200,16] cannot find symbol
  [ERROR] symbol  : class ActivityRuntimeType
  [ERROR] location: class com.sap.me.activity.impl.ExtensionConfigurationService
  [ERROR] \p4views\VM\Base\main\modules\activity\impl\src\main\java\com\sap\me\activity\impl\ExtensionConfigurationService.java:[234,16] cannot find symbol
  [ERROR] symbol  : class ActivityRuntimeType
  [ERROR] location: class com.sap.me.activity.impl.ExtensionConfigurationService
  [ERROR] \p4views\VM\Base\main\modules\activity\impl\src\main\java\com\sap\me\activity\impl\ExtensionConfigurationService.java:[263,16] cannot find symbol
  [ERROR] symbol  : class ActivityRuntimeType
  [ERROR] location: class com.sap.me.activity.impl.ExtensionConfigurationService
  [ERROR] \p4views\VM\Base\main\modules\activity\impl\src\main\java\com\sap\me\activity\impl\ExtensionConfigurationService.java:[294,20] cannot find symbol
  [ERROR] symbol  : class ActivityRuntimeType
  [ERROR] location: class com.sap.me.activity.impl.ExtensionConfigurationService
  [ERROR] \p4views\VM\Base\main\modules\activity\impl\src\main\java\com\sap\me\activity\impl\ExtensionConfigurationService.java:[311,16] cannot find symbol
  [ERROR] symbol  : class ActivityRuntimeType
  [ERROR] location: class com.sap.me.activity.impl.ExtensionConfigurationService
  [ERROR] \p4views\VM\Base\main\modules\activity\impl\src\main\java\com\sap\me\activity\impl\ExtensionConfigurationService.java:[1023,47] cannot find symbol
  [ERROR] symbol  : variable ActivityRuntimeType
  [ERROR] location: class com.sap.me.activity.impl.ExtensionConfigurationService
  [ERROR] \p4views\VM\Base\main\modules\activity\impl\src\main\java\com\sap\me\activity\impl\ExtensionConfigurationService.java:[1025,67] cannot find symbol
  [ERROR] symbol  : variable ActivityRuntimeType
  [ERROR] location: class com.sap.me.activity.impl.ExtensionConfigurationService
  [ERROR] -&gt; [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
  [ERROR]
  [ERROR] After correcting the problems, you can resume the build with the command
  [ERROR]   mvn &lt;goals&gt; -rf :me.activity.impl
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>We're using maven-3.0.4 both for local builds and on Jenkins.  Jenkins version was 1.3ish, but I upgraded to 1.450 to see if the issue would go away - it didn't.  This happened about the time we moved from maven-2.2.1 to maven-3.0.4, but I could swear (although I don't have evidence) that I was getting normal build errors on Jenkins just after the maven upgrade, so I don't think that's it, but it's the only change I can think of that would cause this.  The compiler plugin version is 2.0.2.</p>
  
  <p>I saw a similar posting <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8705581/why-does-jenkins-maven-give-this-error">here</a> but his issue had to do with eclipse builds, not Jenkins.  </p>