One of our projects uses surefire plugin 2.3 :- this fails with the following error:

[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ERROR] BUILD ERROR
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Failed to configure plugin parameters for:
org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-surefire-plugin:2.3

Cause: Cannot find setter nor field in
org.apache.maven.plugin.surefire.SurefirePlugin for 'skipTests'
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[DEBUG] Trace
org.apache.maven.lifecycle.LifecycleExecutionException: Error configuring:
org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-surefire-plugin. Reason: Unable to parse the
created DOM for plugin configuration
at
org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeGoals(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:568)
at
org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeGoalWithLifecycle(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:480)
at
org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeGoal(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:459)
at
org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeGoalAndHandleFailures(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:311)
at
org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeTaskSegments(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:278)
at
org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.execute(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:143)
at
org.apache.maven.lifecycle.LifecycleExecutorInterceptor.execute(LifecycleExecutorInterceptor.java:42)
at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.doExecute(DefaultMaven.java:333)
at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.execute(DefaultMaven.java:126)
at org.apache.maven.cli.MavenCli.main(MavenCli.java:282)
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.classworlds.Launcher.launchEnhanced(Launcher.java:315)
at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.launch(Launcher.java:255)
at hudson.maven.agent.Main.launch(Main.java:97)
at hudson.maven.MavenBuilder.call(MavenBuilder.java:129)
at hudson.maven.MavenModuleSetBuild$Builder.call(MavenModuleSetBuild.java:476)
at hudson.maven.MavenModuleSetBuild$Builder.call(MavenModuleSetBuild.java:422)
at hudson.remoting.UserRequest.perform(UserRequest.java:69)
at hudson.remoting.UserRequest.perform(UserRequest.java:23)
at hudson.remoting.Request$2.run(Request.java:200)
at java.util.concurrent.Executors$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:613)
Caused by: org.apache.maven.plugin.PluginConfigurationException: Error
configuring: org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-surefire-plugin. Reason: Unable to
parse the created DOM for plugin configuration
at
org.apache.maven.plugin.DefaultPluginManager.populatePluginFields(DefaultPluginManager.java:1157)
at
org.apache.maven.plugin.DefaultPluginManager.getConfiguredMojo(DefaultPluginManager.java:618)
at
org.apache.maven.plugin.DefaultPluginManager.executeMojo(DefaultPluginManager.java:425)
at
hudson.maven.agent.PluginManagerInterceptor.executeMojo(PluginManagerInterceptor.java:136)
at
org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeGoals(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:539)
... 28 more
Caused by:
org.codehaus.plexus.component.configurator.ComponentConfigurationException:
Cannot find setter nor field in org.apache.maven.plugin.surefire.SurefirePlugin
for 'skipTests'
at
org.codehaus.plexus.component.configurator.converters.ComponentValueSetter.<init>(ComponentValueSetter.java:68)
at
org.codehaus.plexus.component.configurator.converters.composite.ObjectWithFieldsConverter.processConfiguration(ObjectWithFieldsConverter.java:134)
at
org.codehaus.plexus.component.configurator.BasicComponentConfigurator.configureComponent(BasicComponentConfigurator.java:56)
at
hudson.maven.agent.ComponentConfiguratorFilter.configureComponent(ComponentConfiguratorFilter.java:26)
at
hudson.maven.agent.PluginManagerInterceptor$2.configureComponent(PluginManagerInterceptor.java:122)
at
org.apache.maven.plugin.DefaultPluginManager.populatePluginFields(DefaultPluginManager.java:1151)
... 32 more

Upgrading it temporarily to 2.4 makes it work. Should degrade gracefully if an
older plugin is being used rather than crashing the build.