I haven't played with proxies but from your file, it looks like you have some tags with no values in them
<proxies> <proxy> <active/> <protocol/> <username/> <password/> <port>80</port> <host>198.blah.blah.blah</host> <id/> </proxy> </proxies> Your <active>, <protocol>, <username>, <password>, <id> fields are all empty. Either set these fields or remove them. Also, set <active>true</active>. Again I haven't tried this stuff before so I'm just guessing. If you can, remove the <proxy> section all together. _Mang Lau "Jeff Mutonho" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 03/14/2006 11:38 AM Please respond to "Maven Users List" <users@maven.apache.org> To "Maven Users List" <users@maven.apache.org> cc Subject Re: Build error On 3/14/06, Mang Jun Lau <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > hmm...your maven has almost no changes to it right? It's just unzipped > and you played with some stuff in settings.xml? Has it retrieved anything > from the repository at all? > > Does anyone have any ideas? > > > _Mang Lau > > > I downloaded M2 today, unzipped it , setup my $PATH variable and went to the getting started site ( http://maven.apache.org/guides/getting-started/index.html) , started reading , reached the " How do I make my first Maven project?" sub-heading and got STUMPED , with this error.My settings.xml looks as follows (without the "blah.blah.blah") <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <settings> <proxies> <proxy> <active/> <protocol/> <username/> <password/> <port>80</port> <host>198.blah.blah.blah</host> <id/> </proxy> </proxies> <mirrors> <mirror> <id>lsu.edu</id> <url>http://ibiblio.lsu.edu/main/pub/packages/maven2</url> <mirrorOf>central</mirrorOf> </mirror> </mirrors> </settings> -- "All I ask is a chance to prove that money can't make me happy." Jeff Mutonho Java/J2EE Developer mob : + 27 82 907 6420 GoogleTalk : ejbengine Skype : ejbengine Registered Linux user number 366042