quarkusio/quarkus · error · RuntimeException

Could not write DOM from [<path>]

Error message

Could not write DOM from [<path>]

What it means

PomTransformer.transform(Collection<Transformation>) writes the transformed XML back to the pom path with Files.write inside a consumer; an IOException is rethrown as RuntimeException 'Could not write DOM from [<path>]'. The DOM was built fine but persisting it failed.

Source

Thrown at independent-projects/tools/devtools-common/src/main/java/io/quarkus/maven/utilities/PomTransformer.java:91

    /**
     * Loads the document under {@link #path}, applies the given {@code transformations}, mitigates the formatting
     * issues caused by {@link Transformer} and finally stores the document back to the file under {@link #path}.
     *
     * @param transformations the {@link Transformation}s to apply
     */
    public void transform(Collection<Transformation> transformations) {
        transform(transformations, path, () -> {
            try {
                return Files.readString(path, charset);
            } catch (IOException e) {
                throw new RuntimeException(String.format("Could not read DOM from [%s]", path), e);
            }
        }, xml -> {
            try {
                Files.write(path, xml.getBytes(charset));
            } catch (IOException e) {
                throw new RuntimeException(String.format("Could not write DOM from [%s]", path), e);
            }
        });
    }

    static void transform(Collection<Transformation> edits, Path path, Supplier<String> source,
            Consumer<String> outConsumer) {
        final String src = source.get();

        final Document document;
        try {
            final DOMResult domResult = new DOMResult();
            TransformerFactory.newInstance().newTransformer()
                    .transform(new StreamSource(new StringReader(source.get())), domResult);
            document = (Document) domResult.getNode();
        } catch (TransformerException | TransformerFactoryConfigurationError e) {
            throw new RuntimeException(String.format("Could not read DOM from [%s]", path), e);
        }

View on GitHub (pinned to e1c734241f)

Solutions

1. Make pom.xml writable (chmod u+w / remove read-only flag)
2. Ensure the project directory is writable by the process user
3. Check available disk space and filesystem mount mode (not read-only)
4. Re-run the transformation after closing programs locking the file

Example fix

// before
// running with a read-only mounted project
new PomTransformer(path, ...).transform(edits); // fails
// after
// mount rw and ensure permissions
Files.setPosixFilePermissions(path, PosixFilePermissions.fromString("rw-r--r--"));
new PomTransformer(path, ...).transform(edits);

if (!Files.isWritable(path)) {
    throw new IllegalStateException("pom not writable: " + path);
}
if (Files.exists(path) && !Files.isRegularFile(path)) {
    throw new IllegalStateException("pom path is not a regular file: " + path);
}

try {
    transformer.transform(edits);
} catch (RuntimeException e) {
    if (e.getMessage() != null && e.getMessage().startsWith("Could not write DOM")) {
        throw new IllegalStateException("Pom not writable at " + path, e.getCause());
    }
    throw e;
}

When it happens

Trigger: The write-back step of transform(...) fails because the file is read-only, the directory is not writable, the file was deleted mid-run, or disk issues occur.

Common situations: pom.xml checked out read-only, running in a container with a read-only filesystem, IDE/file watchers locking the file on Windows, full disk.

Related errors

• Could not read DOM from [<path>]
• Unable to create directory: ${directory}
• Unable to collect the target directories
• Unable to update the pom.xml file
• Could not create directory ${outputDirectory}

AI-assisted analysis of quarkusio/quarkus@e1c734241f (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/a78ad4c296b7247a. Report an issue: GitHub.