quarkusio/quarkus · error · IOException

Failed to parse POM

Error message

Failed to parse POM

What it means

ModelUtils.readModel(InputStream) parses a POM with MavenXpp3Reader. If the stream is not well-formed XML (XmlPullParserException), it is rethrown as IOException("Failed to parse POM", e). It means the pom.xml content itself is malformed, not that the file is missing.

Source

Thrown at independent-projects/bootstrap/maven-resolver/src/main/java/io/quarkus/bootstrap/resolver/maven/workspace/ModelUtils.java:261

        }
        final Properties props = new Properties();
        try (BufferedReader reader = Files.newBufferedReader(propsPath)) {
            props.load(reader);
        }
        return props;
    }

    public static Model readModel(final Path pomXml) throws IOException {
        Model model = readModel(Files.newInputStream(pomXml));
        model.setPomFile(pomXml.toFile());
        return model;
    }

    public static Model readModel(InputStream stream) throws IOException {
        try (InputStream is = stream) {
            return new MavenXpp3Reader().read(is);
        } catch (XmlPullParserException e) {
            throw new IOException("Failed to parse POM", e);
        }
    }

    public static void persistModel(Path pomFile, Model model) throws IOException {
        final MavenXpp3Writer xpp3Writer = new MavenXpp3Writer();
        try (BufferedWriter pomFileWriter = Files.newBufferedWriter(pomFile)) {
            xpp3Writer.write(pomFileWriter, model);
        }
    }
}

View on GitHub (pinned to e1c734241f)

Solutions

1. Open the pom.xml at the reported path and fix the XML syntax; run `mvn validate` or `xmllint --noout pom.xml` to confirm it parses.
2. If merge conflict markers are present, resolve the merge and commit a clean pom.xml.
3. Restore a corrupted/truncated pom.xml (git checkout -- pom.xml or rebuild it).
4. Ensure the correct file path is being passed to readModel.

Example fix

// before: conflicted pom.xml
<<<<<<< HEAD
  <version>1.0.0</version>
=======
  <version>2.0.0</version>
>>>>>>> feature
// after: resolved
  <version>2.0.0</version>

static void validatePomXml(Path pom) throws IOException {
    try {
        new javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory().newInstance()
            .newDocumentBuilder().parse(pom.toFile());
    } catch (Exception e) {
        throw new IOException("Malformed POM XML: " + pom + " - " + e.getMessage(), e);
    }
}

try {
    Model model = ModelUtils.readModel(pomStream);
} catch (IOException e) {
    if (e.getCause() instanceof XmlPullParserException) {
        throw new IllegalStateException("Fix XML syntax in the POM: " + e.getCause().getMessage());
    }
    throw e;
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling ModelUtils.readModel(Path) or readModel(InputStream) on a pom.xml containing XML syntax errors: unclosed tags, invalid characters/encoding, garbage bytes, truncated file, HTML instead of XML, or reading a non-XML file path by mistake.

Common situations: A merge conflict left conflict markers (<<<<<<<) in pom.xml; an interrupted build/write truncated the file; manual edits broke a tag; wrong file passed (e.g. a .txt or log file); encoding mismatches (BOM, non-UTF-8 bytes).

Understand the failure class

• Parsing and encoding errors: unexpected token, malformed input — why parsers reject input and how to find the real culprit.

Related errors

• Unable to parse pom file: ${pom}
• Failed to determine groupId for project model
• Failed to determine version for project model
• Failed to load POM from
• Could not resolve POM for

AI-assisted analysis of quarkusio/quarkus@e1c734241f (2026-09-05). Data as JSON: /api/errors/ace9837dddce34d1. Report an issue: GitHub.