Unable to build Maven project due to Javadoc error?

Has anyone come across a similar Maven error as below?

I am unable to build my project due to the error below. All was working previously fine before I started working on the code.

I did not even work on the below defined interfaces and it seems to be related to Javadoc?

[ERROR] Failed to execute goal org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-javadoc-plugin:2.9.1:jar (attach-javadocs) on project jonney-project: MavenReportException: Error while creating archive:

[ERROR] Exit code: 1 - /Users/me/Work/myProject/library/src/main/java/com/me/someInterface.java:45: warning: no @return
[ERROR] public abstract boolean searchForDevce();
[ERROR] ^
[ERROR] /Users/me/Work/myProject/src/main/java/com/me/someInterfaceAgain.java:52: warning: no @return
[ERROR] public abstract boolean selectDevice(int pos);
[ERROR] ^

I'm guessing you switched to Java 8. In this version Javadoc is stricter on the requirements.

You have three choices:

1. Fix the errors
2. disable the strict checking
3. skip Javadoc when building

To disable the strict checking, add this to your pom.xml

<plugins>
  <plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <artifactId>maven-javadoc-plugin</artifactId>
    <configuration>
      <additionalparam>-Xdoclint:none</additionalparam>
    </configuration>
  </plugin>
</plugins>

to skip Javadoc while building, use this:

mvn -Dmaven.javadoc.skip=true verify

Further Information

With maven-javadoc-plugin version 3.0.0 <additionalparam/> has been replaced by <additionalOptions/>. To reduce the errors to warnings this pom.xml entry worked for me:

<build>
    <plugins>
		<plugin>
			<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
			<artifactId>maven-javadoc-plugin</artifactId>
			<executions>
				<execution>
					<id>attach-javadocs</id>
					<goals>
						<goal>jar</goal>
					</goals>
				</execution>
			</executions>
			<configuration>
				<additionalOptions>
					<additionalOption>-Xdoclint:none</additionalOption>
				</additionalOptions>
			</configuration>
		</plugin>
	</plugins>
</build>

UPDATE FOR THOSE WHO GOOGLED THIS BUG: If the project uses source/target 8, adding 8 in javadoc configuration should make the project buildable on jdk {11, 12, 13}:

<plugin>
<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
<artifactId>maven-javadoc-plugin</artifactId>
<configuration>
  <source>8</source>
</configuration>
 ...

Just update your pom.xml with the properties tag, given below.

<properties>
    <additionalparam>-Xdoclint:none</additionalparam>
</properties>

None of the above options seemed to work for me when using version 3.2.0. Instead I noticed the failOnError option. Setting this tags value to false seemed to do the trick for allowing my build to succeed even when there were javadoc errors.

        <plugin>
	        <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
			<artifactId>maven-javadoc-plugin</artifactId>
			<version>${maven.javadoc.plugin.version}</version>
			<executions>
				<execution>
					<id>attach-javadocs</id>
					<goals>
						<goal>jar</goal>
					</goals>
				</execution>
			</executions>
			<configuration>
                <failOnError>false</failOnError>
            </configuration>
        </plugin>

This will stop the javadoc jar from being generated for the maven project. This was okay in my case as I was only wanting to build without errors during ongoing development. The other options may still allow for the javadoc jar to be generated when there are errors.

As mentioned by @turbanoff since version 3.0.0 the maven-javadoc-plugin config setting <additionalparam> has been replaced by <additionalOptions>

So the plugin defintion in your pom.xml can look like this:

<plugin>
	<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
	<artifactId>maven-javadoc-plugin</artifactId>
	<version>3.2.0</version>
	<configuration>
		<additionalOptions>-Xdoclint:none</additionalOptions>
	</configuration>
</plugin>

This configuration will still generate the warnings. So you can and should fix them in your code. But it will now no longer break the maven build.