Cannot run Maven tests on WSL: Not a valid absolute path with additionalClasspathElements configured – Support | JetBrains

Problem

Maven tests fail to run in IntelliJ IDEA-based IDEs when the project is located under WSL and the maven-surefire-plugin or maven-failsafe-plugin is configured with <additionalClasspathElements> in pom.xml.

The "Prepare target..." phase fails with the error:

\home\user\path\to\module: Not a valid absolute path

Error in logs:

WARN - #c.i.e.i.ExecutionManagerImpl - `\home\user\path\to\test\module`: Not a valid absolute path
com.intellij.platform.eel.path.EelPathException: `\home\user\path\to\test\module`: Not a valid absolute path
	at com.intellij.platform.eel.path.EelPath$Companion.parse(EelPath.kt:29)
	at com.intellij.platform.eel.provider.EelNioBridgeServiceKt.asEelPath(EelNioBridgeService.kt:172)
	at com.intellij.execution.target.eel.EelTargetEnvironment$EelVolume$Companion.createFor(EelTargetEnvironmentRequest.kt:233)

Regression introduced between IntelliJ IDEA 2025.2.2 and 2025.2.3, confirmed present through 2026.1.3 and 2026.2 EAP.

Cause

The <additionalClasspathElements> configuration causes the IDE to pass a Windows-style backslash path to the EEL path parser instead of the correct POSIX path. The parser throws EelPathException because backslash paths are not valid EEL absolute paths.

Resolution

If the <additionalClasspathElements> block can be removed from pom.xml, remove it from the surefire or failsafe plugin configuration:

<plugin>
    <groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
    <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
    <version>3.5.2</version>
    <configuration>
        <!-- remove additionalClasspathElements block -->
    </configuration>
</plugin>

If the configuration is inherited from a parent POM that cannot be modified, add the following to the child pom.xml to override it with an empty value:

<additionalClasspathElements combine.self="override"></additionalClasspathElements>

Registry settings wsl.use.remote.agent.for.nio.filesystem and wsl.use.new.filesystem do not affect this issue.