CNFE when running surefire means Isolated (TEST) Classloader cannot load the dependency containing that class In your case that dependency is junit
if it was up to me i would discontinue use of Isolated Classloader in favour of using system classloader the only reason Isolated cl was used was the path limitation for System ClassLoader (initially 4k) now all paths including CLASSPATH can be 32k so restricted classpath length should not be an issue ymmv martin-
