I have run into this error many times in the past, and have not seen any blogs on this issue, so I wanted to create a better blog with a solution to the issue.

The issue starts with trying to create site documentation using mvn site:site that results in an
ArtifactNotFoundException being thrown during the site generation like:

[ERROR] BUILD ERROR
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
<strong>[INFO] SiteToolException: ArtifactNotFoundException:
The skin does not exist: Unable to determine the release version
</strong>
Try downloading the file manually from the project website.

Then, install it using the command:
mvn install:install-file -DgroupId=org.apache.maven.skins -DartifactId=maven-default-skin
-Dversion=RELEASE -Dpackaging=jar -Dfile=/path/to/file

Alternatively, if you host your own repository you can deploy the file there:
mvn deploy:deploy-file -DgroupId=org.apache.maven.skins -DartifactId=maven-default-skin
-Dversion=RELEASE -Dpackaging=jar -Dfile=/path/to/file -Durl=[url] -DrepositoryId=[id]

org.apache.maven.skins:maven-default-skin:jar:RELEASE

[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Trace
org.apache.maven.lifecycle.LifecycleExecutionException: SiteToolException:
ArtifactNotFoundException: The skin does not exist: Unable to determine the release version

Try downloading the file manually from the project website.

Then, install it using the command:
mvn install:install-file -DgroupId=org.apache.maven.skins -DartifactId=maven-default-skin
-Dversion=RELEASE -Dpackaging=jar -Dfile=/path/to/file

Alternatively, if you host your own repository you can deploy the file there:
mvn deploy:deploy-file -DgroupId=org.apache.maven.skins -DartifactId=maven-default-skin
-Dversion=RELEASE -Dpackaging=jar -Dfile=/path/to/file -Durl=[url] -DrepositoryId=[id]

org.apache.maven.skins:maven-default-skin:jar:RELEASE

at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeGoals(
DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:584)
at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeGoalWithLifecycle(
DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:500)
at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeGoal(
DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:479)
at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeGoalAndHandleFailures(
DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:331)
at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeTaskSegments(
DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:292)
at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.execute(
DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:142)
at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.doExecute(DefaultMaven.java:336)
at org.apache.maven.DefaultMaven.execute(DefaultMaven.java:129)
at org.apache.maven.cli.MavenCli.main(MavenCli.java:301)
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:585)
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)
Caused by: org.apache.maven.plugin.MojoExecutionException: SiteToolException:
ArtifactNotFoundException:
The skin does not exist: Unable to determine the release version

Try downloading the file manually from the project website.

Then, install it using the command:
mvn install:install-file -DgroupId=org.apache.maven.skins -DartifactId=maven-default-skin
-Dversion=RELEASE -Dpackaging=jar -Dfile=/path/to/file

Alternatively, if you host your own repository you can deploy the file there:
mvn deploy:deploy-file -DgroupId=org.apache.maven.skins -DartifactId=maven-default-skin
-Dversion=RELEASE -Dpackaging=jar -Dfile=/path/to/file -Durl=[url] -DrepositoryId=[id]

org.apache.maven.skins:maven-default-skin:jar:RELEASE

at org.apache.maven.plugins.site.AbstractSiteRenderingMojo.createSiteRenderingContext
(AbstractSiteRenderingMojo.java:255)
at org.apache.maven.plugins.site.SiteMojo.renderLocale(SiteMojo.java:117)
at org.apache.maven.plugins.site.SiteMojo.execute(SiteMojo.java:100)
at org.apache.maven.plugin.DefaultPluginManager.executeMojo(DefaultPluginManager.java:453)
at org.apache.maven.lifecycle.DefaultLifecycleExecutor.executeGoals(
DefaultLifecycleExecutor.java:559)
... 16 more
Caused by: org.apache.maven.doxia.tools.SiteToolException: ArtifactNotFoundException: The skin
does not exist: Unable to determine the release version

Try downloading the file manually from the project website.

Then, install it using the command:
mvn install:install-file -DgroupId=org.apache.maven.skins -DartifactId=maven-default-skin
-Dversion=RELEASE -Dpackaging=jar -Dfile=/path/to/file

Alternatively, if you host your own repository you can deploy the file there:
mvn deploy:deploy-file -DgroupId=org.apache.maven.skins -DartifactId=maven-default-skin
-Dversion=RELEASE -Dpackaging=jar -Dfile=/path/to/file -Durl=[url] -DrepositoryId=[id]

org.apache.maven.skins:maven-default-skin:jar:RELEASE

at org.apache.maven.doxia.tools.DefaultSiteTool.getSkinArtifactFromRepository(
DefaultSiteTool.java:175)
at org.apache.maven.plugins.site.AbstractSiteRenderingMojo.createSiteRenderingContext(
AbstractSiteRenderingMojo.java:250)
... 20 more
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Total time: 35 seconds
[INFO] Finished at: Wed Aug 19 10:43:16 EDT 2009
[INFO] Final Memory: 21M/508M
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have seen some articles stating the issues from not having the skin defined in the site.xml as follows:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<project name="BASE Logic ${project.version}">
...
<poweredBy>
<logo name="BLiNC" href="http://baselogic.com/"
img="http://baselogic.com/images/pb-blinc-maven.png"/>
</poweredBy>

<strong>&lt;skin&gt;
&lt;groupId&gt;org.apache.tapestry&lt;/groupId&gt;
&lt;artifactId&gt;maven-skin&lt;/artifactId&gt;
&lt;version&gt;1.1&lt;/version&gt;
&lt;/skin&gt;</strong>

&lt;body&gt;
...

I have also seen some posting that said adding a reporting plugin was required to be added to my pom.xml, but in my case, this was not the issue.

The issue I faced was trying to run site documentation on a multi-module project. My project was a Root Project, and 2 sub-modules like:

./ pom.xml<em><strong> (root)</strong></em>
./core-jar/pom.xml
./webapp/pom.xml

The issue was actually that my child modules did not have a Parent declaration such as:

<strong>&lt;parent&gt;
&lt;groupId&gt;com.baselogic&lt;/groupId&gt;
&lt;artifactId&gt;root&lt;/artifactId&gt;
&lt;version&gt;3.0&lt;/version&gt;
&lt;/parent&gt;</strong>

&lt;groupId&gt;com.baselogic&lt;/groupId&gt;
&lt;artifactId&gt;core-jar&lt;/artifactId&gt;

Once this declaration was added, the site documentation for all modules was successful.

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