I have created a simple project with one testNg testcase. Configuring the dashboard plugin and running site results in this null pointer exception: java.lang.NullPointerException at org.apache.maven.plugins.surefire.report.ReportTestSuite.characters(ReportTestSuite.java:181) at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.AbstractSAXParser.characters(AbstractSAXParser.java:538) at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.scanDocument(XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.java:486) at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(XML11Configuration.java:807) at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(XML11Configuration.java:737) at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.XMLParser.parse(XMLParser.java:107) at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.AbstractSAXParser.parse(AbstractSAXParser.java:1205) at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.jaxp.SAXParserImpl$JAXPSAXParser.parse(SAXParserImpl.java:522) at javax.xml.parsers.SAXParser.parse(SAXParser.java:395) at javax.xml.parsers.SAXParser.parse(SAXParser.java:331) at org.apache.maven.plugins.surefire.report.ReportTestSuite.parse(ReportTestSuite.java:71) at org.apache.maven.plugins.surefire.report.SurefireReportParser.parseXMLReportFiles(SurefireReportParser.java:70) at org.codehaus.mojo.dashboard.report.plugin.DashBoardUtils.getSurefireReport(DashBoardUtils.java:519) at org.codehaus.mojo.dashboard.report.plugin.DashBoardUtils.getDashBoardReportBean(DashBoardUtils.java:268) at org.codehaus.mojo.dashboard.report.plugin.DashBoardReportMojo.executeReport(DashBoardReportMojo.java:143) at org.apache.maven.reporting.AbstractMavenReport.generate(AbstractMavenReport.java:98) at org.apache.maven.plugins.site.ReportDocumentRenderer.renderDocument(ReportDocumentRenderer.java:139) at org.apache.maven.doxia.siterenderer.DefaultSiteRenderer.renderModule(DefaultSiteRenderer.java:269) at org.apache.maven.doxia.siterenderer.DefaultSiteRenderer.render(DefaultSiteRenderer.java:101) at org.apache.maven.plugins.site.SiteMojo.renderLocale(SiteMojo.java:129) at org.apache.maven.plugins.site.SiteMojo.execute(SiteMojo.java:96) at org.apache.maven.plugin.DefaultPluginManager.executeMojo(DefaultPluginManager.java:447) at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeGoals(DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:539) 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.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:597) at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.launchEnhanced(Launcher.java:315) at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.launch(Launcher.java:255) at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.mainWithExitCode(Launcher.java:430) at org.codehaus.classworlds.Launcher.main(Launcher.java:375) Upgrading the surefire-report dependency from 2.0 to 2.4 fixes this.