Maven 2 & 3

system-scoped dependency must specify an absolute path systemPath.

In your POM I see {{<systemPath>${wtk.home}/lib/jsr211.jar</systemPath>}}. The error message suggests that the property wtk.home was not resolved (hence no absolute path) so you should check your environmental setup.

The variable is set. I did not unset it before installing Maven 2.1.0

It iscontained in a properties section:

<wtk.home>${env.WTK_HOME}</wtk.home>

echo %WTK_HOME%
C:\WTK2.5.1

Something must have been improved from 2.0.9 to 2.1.0.

Hm, how does a minimal POM that does not inherit from any parent but declares the wtk.home property and the system dependency itself work for you? Just trying to figure out whether inheritance plays a role or not.

The other thing interesting to test might be to outcomment the system dependency in this minimal POM and check the output of "mvn help:effective-pom" shows the value of the wtk.home property as expected.

I get with mvn help:effective-pom:

<dependency>
<groupId>j2me</groupId>
<artifactId>mmapi</artifactId>
<version>10</version>
<scope>system</scope>
<systemPath>C:\WTK2.5.1/lib/mmapi.jar</systemPath>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>com.sun.wtk</groupId>
<artifactId>wma20</artifactId>
<version>2.2</version>
<scope>system</scope>
<systemPath>C:\WTK2.5.1/lib/wma20.jar</systemPath>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>j2me</groupId>
<artifactId>midp</artifactId>
<version>20</version>
<scope>system</scope>
<systemPath>C:\WTK2.5.1/lib/midpapi20.jar</systemPath>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>j2me</groupId>
<artifactId>cldc</artifactId>
<version>11</version>
<scope>system</scope>
<systemPath>C:\WTK2.5.1/lib/cldcapi11.jar</systemPath>
</dependency>
<dependency>
<groupId>javax.microedition.location</groupId>
<artifactId>jsr179</artifactId>
<version>1.0</version>
<scope>system</scope>
<systemPath>C:\WTK2.5.1/lib/jsr179.jar</systemPath>
</dependency>

The path separators are different. Maybe this is the problem.

If you get this via "mvn help:effective-pom", you have already passed the point where it would otherwise bail out (model validation). Hence, the different file separators are not the problem. Assuming you got this output from the minimal POM I described earlier, I assume inheritance and/or dependency management play a role here.

Th maven code which does this tries to locate the fiel with a File().exists(). The warning is thrown there.
(file maven/project/DefaultValidatorModel.java)

[WARNING] POM for 'net.sf:microlog-instrument:pom:1.1.1:compile' is invalid.

Its dependencies (if any) will NOT be available to the current build.
[DEBUG] Reason: Failed to validate POM for project net.sf:microlog-instrument at
Artifact [net.sf:microlog-instrument:pom:1.1.1:compile]
[DEBUG]
I have build the current Maven snapshot and modified the code to see what DefaultValidatorModel.java does:

Validation Errors:
[DEBUG] For managed dependency Dependency {groupId=com.sun.wtk, artifactId=jsr21 1, version=2.2, type=jar}: system-scoped dependency must specify an absolute pat
h ${env.WTK_HOME}/lib/jsr211.jar.
[DEBUG] For managed dependency Dependency {groupId=com.sun.wtk, artifactId=jsr08 2, version=2.2, type=jar}: system-scoped dependency must specify an absolute pat
h ${env.WTK_HOME}/lib/jsr082.jar.
[DEBUG] For managed dependency Dependency {groupId=com.sun.wtk, artifactId=jsr75 , version=2.2, type=jar}: system-scoped dependency must specify an absolute path
${env.WTK_HOME}/lib/jsr75.jar.
[DEBUG] For managed dependency Dependency {groupId=com.sun.wtk, artifactId=wma20 , version=2.2, type=jar}: system-scoped dependency must specify an absolute path
${env.WTK_HOME}/lib/wma20.jar.
[DEBUG]

The variable is not resolved at runtime. Maybe this is related to MNG-4182.

here's something I found out:

I have system-scoped dependency in my pom.xml:

<dependency>
<groupId>weblogic</groupId>
<artifactId>wls-api</artifactId>
<version>${weblogic.version}</version>
<scope>system</scope>
<systemPath>${weblogic.home}/server/lib/wls-api.jar</systemPath>
</dependency>

If I specify weblogic-home in settings.xml profile:

<profiles>
<profile>
<id>default</id>
<activation>
<activeByDefault>true</activeByDefault>
</activation>
<properties>
<weblogic.home>C:\localdata\lib\bea\wlserver_10.0</weblogic.home>
</properties>
</profile>
</profiles>

it fails to resolve and I get the same warning:
[WARNING] POM for '....' is invalid.
Its dependencies (if any) will NOT be available to the current build.

But if I specify the same property via -D-parameter on the mvn commandline
mvn -Dweblogic.home=c:\\localdata
weblogic
then it's going to be resolved and it builds without errors.

Norbert, the cause for your issue is captured by MNG-4148.

superceded by linked issue