versions-maven-plugin is not able to read maven-metadata.xml

Question

Suddenly from today, versions-maven-plugin is not working. I haven't changed any settings and the plugin was working previously.

[INFO] --- versions-maven-plugin:2.1:display-dependency-updates (default-cli) @ parent ---
[INFO] 
[INFO] artifact org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-clean-plugin: checking for updates from central
[WARNING] repository metadata for: 'artifact org.apache.maven.plugins:maven-clean-plugin' could not be retrieved from repository: central due to an error: Authorization failed: Access denied to: http://repo.maven.apache.org/maven2/org/apache/maven/plugins/maven-clean-plugin/maven-metadata.xml , ReasonPhrase:Denied Access.

The mvaen version mvn -v is:

Apache Maven 3.1.0 (893ca28a1da9d5f51ac03827af98bb730128f9f2; 2013-06-28 07:45:32+0530)
Maven home: /opt/maven
Java version: 1.7.0_25, vendor: Oracle Corporation
Java home: /usr/lib/jvm/java-7-openjdk-amd64/jre
Default locale: en_IN, platform encoding: UTF-8
OS name: "linux", version: "3.8.0-29-generic", arch: "amd64", family: "unix"

The same problem comes when executing mvn archetype:generate :

[INFO] Scanning for projects...
[INFO]                                                                         
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Building Maven Stub Project (No POM) 1
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] 
[INFO] >>> maven-archetype-plugin:2.2:generate (default-cli) @ standalone-pom >>>
[INFO] 
[INFO] <<< maven-archetype-plugin:2.2:generate (default-cli) @ standalone-pom <<<
[INFO] 
[INFO] --- maven-archetype-plugin:2.2:generate (default-cli) @ standalone-pom ---
[INFO] Generating project in Interactive mode
[WARNING] Error reading archetype catalog http://repo1.maven.org/maven2
org.apache.maven.wagon.authorization.AuthorizationException: Access denied to: http://repo1.maven.org/maven2 , ReasonPhrase:Denied Access.
    at org.apache.maven.wagon.shared.http4.AbstractHttpClientWagon.fillInputData(AbstractHttpClientWagon.java:928)

Note: I am not behind any proxy and the settings file is:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<settings xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/SETTINGS/1.0.0" 
          xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" 
          xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/SETTINGS/1.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/xsd/settings-1.0.0.xsd">

  <localRepository>/var/lib/maven</localRepository>

  <pluginGroups>
  </pluginGroups>

  <proxies>
  </proxies>

  <servers>
  </servers>

  <mirrors>
  </mirrors>

  <profiles>
  </profiles>

</settings>

Answer 1

Friends,

It seems like Apache central repository has fixed the issue. So without making any code change, the problem is fixed now.