Since the error is from the slave node I need some more information from your slave. What JDK are use using on the slaves? Typically, the class org.apache.xerces.jaxp.SAXParserFactoryImpl should be available on your slave.

How do you connect your slaves with the master?

BTW: you can run the analysis on your master by copying the results (pmd.xml and cpd.xml) to the master node and running a new job that does only analyse these files (just as a workaround).

Can you please also have a look at the comments from JENKINS-14689?

I have one slave with:
java version "1.6.0_26"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_26-b03)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 20.1-b02, mixed mode, sharing)

the other uses:
java version "1.6.0_35"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.6.0_35-b10)
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 20.10-b01, mixed mode, sharing)
The issue occurs on both.

I connect both slaves to the master using slave-agent.jnlp

I did copy the pmd.xml and cpd.xml to the master, configured a new job which only published these files. PMD publishing was successful, while parsing cpd.xml was not giving the following exception (which I have seen previously):

Building on master in workspace /var/lib/jenkins/workspace/pmd-test
[PMD] Collecting PMD analysis files...
[PMD] Finding all files that match the pattern reports/pmd.xml
[PMD] Parsing 1 files in /var/lib/jenkins/workspace/pmd-test
[PMD] Successfully parsed file /var/lib/jenkins/workspace/pmd-test/reports/pmd.xml of module with 2269 warnings.
[DRY] Collecting duplicate code analysis files...
[DRY] Finding all files that match the pattern reports/cpd.xml
[DRY] Parsing 1 files in /var/lib/jenkins/workspace/pmd-test
[DRY] Parsing of file /var/lib/jenkins/workspace/pmd-test/reports/cpd.xml failed due to an exception:

java.io.IOException: No parser found for duplicated code results file /var/lib/jenkins/workspace/pmd-test/reports/cpd.xml
at hudson.plugins.dry.parser.DuplicationParserRegistry.parse(DuplicationParserRegistry.java:93)
at hudson.plugins.analysis.core.FilesParser.parseFile(FilesParser.java:261)
at hudson.plugins.analysis.core.FilesParser.parseFiles(FilesParser.java:220)
at hudson.plugins.analysis.core.FilesParser.invoke(FilesParser.java:169)
at hudson.plugins.analysis.core.FilesParser.invoke(FilesParser.java:31)
at hudson.FilePath.act(FilePath.java:851)
at hudson.FilePath.act(FilePath.java:824)
at hudson.plugins.dry.DryPublisher.perform(DryPublisher.java:175)
at hudson.plugins.analysis.core.HealthAwarePublisher.perform(HealthAwarePublisher.java:144)
at hudson.plugins.analysis.core.HealthAwareRecorder.perform(HealthAwareRecorder.java:329)
at hudson.tasks.BuildStepMonitor$1.perform(BuildStepMonitor.java:19)
at hudson.model.AbstractBuild$AbstractBuildExecution.perform(AbstractBuild.java:807)
at hudson.model.AbstractBuild$AbstractBuildExecution.performAllBuildSteps(AbstractBuild.java:782)
at hudson.model.Build$BuildExecution.post2(Build.java:183)
at hudson.model.AbstractBuild$AbstractBuildExecution.post(AbstractBuild.java:729)
at hudson.model.Run.execute(Run.java:1541)
at hudson.model.FreeStyleBuild.run(FreeStyleBuild.java:46)
at hudson.model.ResourceController.execute(ResourceController.java:88)
at hudson.model.Executor.run(Executor.java:236)

(FYI: com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.jaxp.SAXParserFactoryImpl.class is in the CLASSPATH because it is in the SUN rt.jar, but not what we are looking for.)

I have only one jar (xercesImpl.jar) in the PATH, which implements org.apache.xerces.jaxp.SAXParserFactoryImpl.
I created the folder "c:\Program Files\Java\jre6\lib\endorsed\" and copied that jar into it. Now PMD publishing runs successfully.

Copy/Paste detection publishing (DRY) again fails with the following error on the slave console:
Oct 23, 2012 3:40:34 PM com.youdevise.hudson.slavestatus.SlaveListener call
INFO: Slave-status listener starting
Oct 23, 2012 3:40:34 PM com.youdevise.hudson.slavestatus.SocketHTTPListener waitForConnection
INFO: Slave-status listener ready on port 3141
Oct 23, 2012 3:40:45 PM org.apache.commons.digester3.Digester getParser
SEVERE: Digester.getParser:
java.lang.UnsupportedOperationException: This parser does not support specification "null" version "null"
at javax.xml.parsers.SAXParserFactory.setXIncludeAware(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.commons.digester3.Digester.getFactory(Digester.java:439)
at org.apache.commons.digester3.Digester.getParser(Digester.java:652)
at org.apache.commons.digester3.Digester.getXMLReader(Digester.java:799)
at org.apache.commons.digester3.Digester.parse(Digester.java:1642)
at org.apache.commons.digester3.Digester.parse(Digester.java:1701)
at hudson.plugins.dry.parser.cpd.CpdParser.accepts(CpdParser.java:48)
at hudson.plugins.dry.parser.DuplicationParserRegistry.parse(DuplicationParserRegistry.java:77)
at hudson.plugins.analysis.core.FilesParser.parseFile(FilesParser.java:261)
at hudson.plugins.analysis.core.FilesParser.parseFiles(FilesParser.java:220)
at hudson.plugins.analysis.core.FilesParser.invoke(FilesParser.java:169)
at hudson.plugins.analysis.core.FilesParser.invoke(FilesParser.java:31)
at hudson.FilePath$FileCallableWrapper.call(FilePath.java:2308)
at hudson.remoting.UserRequest.perform(UserRequest.java:118)
at hudson.remoting.UserRequest.perform(UserRequest.java:48)
at hudson.remoting.Request$2.run(Request.java:326)
at hudson.remoting.InterceptingExecutorService$1.call(InterceptingExecutorService.java:72)
at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync.innerRun(Unknown Source)
at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(Unknown Source)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.runTask(Unknown Source)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(Unknown Source)
at hudson.remoting.Engine$1$1.run(Engine.java:60)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

And the Jenkins log shows:
[DRY] Collecting duplicate code analysis files...
ERROR: Publisher hudson.plugins.dry.DryPublisher aborted due to exception
java.lang.NullPointerException
at org.apache.commons.digester3.Digester.getXMLReader(Digester.java:799)
at org.apache.commons.digester3.Digester.parse(Digester.java:1642)
at org.apache.commons.digester3.Digester.parse(Digester.java:1701)
at hudson.plugins.dry.parser.cpd.CpdParser.accepts(CpdParser.java:48)
at hudson.plugins.dry.parser.DuplicationParserRegistry.parse(DuplicationParserRegistry.java:77)
at hudson.plugins.analysis.core.FilesParser.parseFile(FilesParser.java:261)
at hudson.plugins.analysis.core.FilesParser.parseFiles(FilesParser.java:220)
at hudson.plugins.analysis.core.FilesParser.invoke(FilesParser.java:169)
at hudson.plugins.analysis.core.FilesParser.invoke(FilesParser.java:31)
at hudson.FilePath$FileCallableWrapper.call(FilePath.java:2308)
at hudson.remoting.UserRequest.perform(UserRequest.java:118)
at hudson.remoting.UserRequest.perform(UserRequest.java:48)
at hudson.remoting.Request$2.run(Request.java:326)
at hudson.remoting.InterceptingExecutorService$1.call(InterceptingExecutorService.java:72)
at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync.innerRun(Unknown Source)
at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(Unknown Source)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.runTask(Unknown Source)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(Unknown Source)
at hudson.remoting.Engine$1$1.run(Engine.java:60)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)

Ok, thanks for the detailed input. Just to be sure: can you please clean up your JLNP classes cache so that all classes are reloaded from the master.

Somehow the correct XML parser is not found on your machine in the PMD issue. Maybe another tool defined that SAX parser instance and now my plug-in tries to reuse it (which is not on the class path). I need to investigate how I can reset the XML parser.

The second problem is different. Can you please attach the cpd.xml file? (Or clone this issue since these two problems seem to be unrelated)

I deleted all of my Java cache, removed the "c:\Program Files\Java\jre6\lib\endorsed\xercesImpl.jar" and re-ran the test. The results are the same.
I have created Issue 15613 (https://issues.jenkins-ci.org/browse/JENKINS-15613) for the CPD issue and will add the relevant info there.

Thanks

Can you please check if this error also occurs with Java 7? Or if Java 6 is installed using Jenkins automatic tool installation?

Hi,
I think I know what the problem is as I had the same problem. When you run pmd-cpd on a Windows system the encoding in the xml file is set to Cp1252, which is not an official character set. Then when the plugin tries to read the xml file the Digester3 throws an exception.
I actually build the plugin from source and added a unit test with my own pmd-cpd.xml files, that why I know the exact cause of the exception that is thrown.
This problem appeared to me after I upgraded the plugin from .34 to .38. At this point I think the Disgester3 was introduced and this parser is strict on the encoding.

Now the question is who is to blame , the DryPublisher plugin was working before, now it is not. But Pmd-cpd produces an xml file that is not accepted by disgester3....

Anyway, I thought it would be easier to fix the bug on the pmd side then to change the parser used in the plugin so I fixed the pmd-cpd bug and filed a bug report with them and my change was accepted.

To make sure you have the same problem check your pmd-cpd output and check the encoding, if it is Cp1252 then that is probably the problem.

As a workaround before a new release of pmd you can try the solution offered by Andreas: https://sourceforge.net/p/pmd/bugs/1144/#04f6

This is the unit test that failed when the pmd-cpd.xml contains the Cp1252

@Test
public void assertCanReadWindowsFile() throws InvocationTargetException {
   String fileName = "pmd-cpd.xml";
   assertTrue(VALID_CPD_FILE, acceptsFile(fileName));
}

This is the xml that causes the problem:

    <?xml version="1.0" encoding="Cp1252"?>

This is the exception that is thrown which you won't see when running a job, there it will normally just tell you that now parser is found.

Oct 30, 2013 9:38:45 AM org.apache.commons.digester3.Digester fatalError
SEVERE: Parse Fatal Error at line 1 column 40: Invalid encoding name "Cp1252".
org.xml.sax.SAXParseException; lineNumber: 1; columnNumber: 40; Invalid encoding name "Cp1252".
	at org.apache.xerces.util.ErrorHandlerWrapper.createSAXParseException(Unknown Source)
	at org.apache.xerces.util.ErrorHandlerWrapper.fatalError(Unknown Source)

This should be fixed in PMD 5.1.0