Maven error: Could not find or load main class org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.launcher.Launcher

Question

I have installed a latest maven-3.0.4 on Windows 7:
The installation details are as follows:
Installation Path :

C:\apache-maven-3.0.4  

Environment Variables are:

M2_HOME C:\apache-maven-3.0.4\apache-maven\src  
JAVA_HOME C:\Program Files\Java\jdk-1.7.0_04  

Path variables added are:

%M2_HOME%\bin;%JAVA_HOME%\bin;

In the command window it shows it like this:

C:\>java -version  
java version "1.7.0_04"  
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.7.0_04-b22)  
Java HotSpot(TM) Client VM (build 23.0-b21, mixed mode, sharing)  
C:\>mvn -version  
Error: Could not find or load main class org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.launcher.Launcher  

This is the only version on maven installed on my PC and the solution given on many blogs referring to the deletion of the previous M2_HOME environment variable is not valid.

I have read and tried all the solutions given at blogs such as :

• oracle blog,
• stackoverflow question,
• another stack question,
• some blog,

but still not able to get to it. What I might be missing in this whole thing? Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

I hit this problem too, and found this article. For Maven3, changing my environment variable name from M2_HOME to M3_HOME did the trick. I am on a Mac running OSX 10.9 with JDK 1.7. Hope this helps.

Note: Please delete M2_HOME, if already set. Eg: unset M2_HOME