If you are getting the below error message while working on Maven then make sure that theJAVA_HOME environment variable has been set correctly.
bash-3.2$ mvn --versionException in thread "main" java.lang.UnsupportedClassVersionError: org/apache/maven/cli/MavenCli : Unsupported major.minor version 51.0
at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass1(Native Method)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClassCond(ClassLoader.java:637)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.defineClass(ClassLoader.java:621)
at java.security.SecureClassLoader.defineClass(SecureClassLoader.java:141)
at java.net.URLClassLoader.defineClass(URLClassLoader.java:283)
at java.net.URLClassLoader.access$000(URLClassLoader.java:58)
at java.net.URLClassLoader$1.run(URLClassLoader.java:197)
at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
at java.net.URLClassLoader.findClass(URLClassLoader.java:190)
at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.realm.ClassRealm.loadClassFromSelf(ClassRealm.java:401)
at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.strategy.SelfFirstStrategy.loadClass(SelfFirstStrategy.java:42)
at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.realm.ClassRealm.unsynchronizedLoadClass(ClassRealm.java:271)
at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.realm.ClassRealm.loadClass(ClassRealm.java:254)
at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.realm.ClassRealm.loadClass(ClassRealm.java:239)
at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.launcher.Launcher.getMainClass(Launcher.java:144)
at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.launcher.Launcher.launchEnhanced(Launcher.java:266)
at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.launcher.Launcher.launch(Launcher.java:229)
at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.launcher.Launcher.mainWithExitCode(Launcher.java:415)
at org.codehaus.plexus.classworlds.launcher.Launcher.main(Launcher.java:356)
bash-3.2$
Note this is for Mac OS X running 10.10 Yosemite with JRE version 1.8
Open Terminal,
Run Command : echo $JAVA_HOME
Check if the jre path set is correct : /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_25.jdk/Contents/Home/
If not then use the following command to set it : export JAVA_HOME=/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_25.jdk/Contents/Home/
Now to verify if the issue is resolved run command : mvn --version
bash-3.2$ mvn --version
Apache Maven 3.3.3 (7994120775791599e205a5524ec3e0dfe41d4a06; 2015-04-22T17:27:37+05:30)
Maven home: /Users/rakeshswami/Setups/apache-maven-3.3.3
Java version: 1.8.0_25, vendor: Oracle Corporation
Java home: /Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_25.jdk/Contents/Home/jre
Default locale: en_US, platform encoding: UTF-8
OS name: "mac os x", version: "10.10.3", arch: "x86_64", family: "mac"
bash-3.2$If everything worked fine you should get no error and get an output as above.