apache/maven · warning · RepositoryMetadataResolutionException

Unable to store local copy of metadata: {}

Error message

Unable to store local copy of metadata: {}

What it means

Slf4jMavenTransferListener.transferCorrupted fires when the resolver reports a corrupted transfer (checksum mismatch observed during a download). The warning shows the underlying exception message plus the repository id, URL, and resource path; the download itself subsequently fails or is retried according to the repository checksum policy.

Source

Thrown at compat/maven-compat/src/main/java/org/apache/maven/artifact/repository/metadata/DefaultRepositoryMetadataManager.java:157

                                        + " due to an error: " + e.getMessage());
                        getLogger().debug("Exception", e);
                    } finally {
                        updateCheckManager.touch(metadata, repository, file);
                    }
                }

                // TODO should this be inside the above check?
                // touch file so that this is not checked again until interval has passed
                if (file.exists()) {
                    file.setLastModified(System.currentTimeMillis());
                }
            }
        }

        try {
            mergeMetadata(metadata, remoteRepositories, localRepo);
        } catch (RepositoryMetadataStoreException e) {
            throw new RepositoryMetadataResolutionException(
                    "Unable to store local copy of metadata: " + e.getMessage(), e);
        }
    }

    private Date getLocalCopyLastModified(ArtifactRepository localRepository, RepositoryMetadata metadata) {
        String metadataPath = localRepository.pathOfLocalRepositoryMetadata(metadata, localRepository);
        File metadataFile = new File(localRepository.getBasedir(), metadataPath);
        return metadataFile.isFile() ? new Date(metadataFile.lastModified()) : null;
    }

    private void mergeMetadata(
            RepositoryMetadata metadata,
            List<ArtifactRepository> remoteRepositories,
            ArtifactRepository localRepository)
            throws RepositoryMetadataStoreException {
        // TODO currently this is first wins, but really we should take the latest by comparing either the
        // snapshot timestamp, or some other timestamp later encoded into the metadata.
        // TODO this needs to be repeated here so the merging doesn't interfere with the written metadata

View on GitHub (pinned to e4093d4e12)

Solutions

1. Delete the partially downloaded artifact directory from the local repository and retry with -U
2. Compare checksums manually to see which side is wrong: sha1sum of the local file versus the remote .sha1 fetched with curl
3. Switch to a healthy mirror of Central if the repository keeps serving corrupt files
4. Set checksumPolicy=fail to turn silent corruption into an explicit build error

Example fix

# before
mvn clean install   # warns during download: Checksum failed ... from central
# after
clean=$(find ~/.m2/repository -path '*com/example/artifact/1.0' -type d); rm -rf $clean
mvn -U clean install

dir=~/.m2/repository/com/example/artifact/1.0
current=$(sha1sum $dir/artifact-1.0.jar 2>/dev/null | cut -d' ' -f1)
expected=$(cat $dir/artifact-1.0.jar.sha1 2>/dev/null)
[ "$current" = "$expected" ] || rm -rf $dir   # force clean re-download

When it happens

Trigger: Checksum verification failure while downloading, surfaced through the default CLI logging (visible when progress output is enabled, hidden by --no-transfer-progress).

Common situations: Mirrors or proxies serving truncated files; local repository holding a partial download; repositories with stale .sha1/.md5 files.

Related errors

• The groupId cannot be empty.
• The type cannot be empty.
• The version cannot be empty.
• Unbounded range: {}
• Ranges overlap: {}

AI-assisted analysis of apache/maven@e4093d4e12 (2026-08-21). Data as JSON: /api/errors/a4ce5ac3c9404667. Report an issue: GitHub.