JCenter deprecation, Could not find com.aries:docker-java-shaded:3.1.0-rc-5

./gradlew build -S --scan -x test
build output:

* What went wrong:
Execution failed for task ':buildAppDockerImage'.
> Could not resolve all files for configuration ':dockerJava'.
   > Could not find com.aries:docker-java-shaded:3.1.0-rc-5.
     Required by:
         project :

Hi,

JCenter is being deprecated, so we are switching to Mavencentral. However, the build is complaining that Mavencentral is missing a dependency. “com.aries:docker-java-shaded:3.1.0-rc-5.”
It is true that Maven is currently not hosting the POM file for the above.
There is a JAR link but it is empty: https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/com.aries/docker-java-shaded/3.1.0-rc-5

I would like to pinpoint what is requiring this dependency in our build. I’m guessing it is one of the plugins we are using that has the failing task above (buildAppDockerImage) : “com.liferay.app.docker” version “1.0.9”

As seen above, the “Required by:” and “project:” fields are empty. Is there a way to see what exactly is requiring this dependency?

JCenter is being deprecated, so we are switching to Mavencentral.

This is not too relevant here, is it? Neither of the two contains any version of the com.aries:docker-java-shaded artifact.

It is true that Maven is currently not hosting the POM file for the above.
There is a JAR link but it is empty: https://mvnrepository.com/artifact/com.aries/docker-java-shaded/3.1.0-rc-5

mvnrepository.com != Maven Central
search.maven.org == Maven Central
mvnrepository.com is an indexing site which indexes many repositories to find one hosting the artifact you search for in the version you need.
You then also need to add the respective repository to your build script if you trust it.
In this case this would be the “Spring Lib M” repository.
Unfortunately it seems that repository requires authentication to download dependencies which is why it looks empty if you klick the link.

As seen above, the “Required by:” and “project:” fields are empty. Is there a way to see what exactly is requiring this dependency?

That’s not correct. project is not a field and Required by is not empty.
The value of Required by is project :.
project : means “the project with path :” or in other words the root project.
It is a common technique that a plugin adds a configuration to the project where it is applied with a default dependency that you can override by declaring some explicit dependency.
In this case some plugin added the dockerJava configuration, most probably the plugin adding the buildAppDockerImage task.
Actually, that it is adding an RC version of a dependency as default dependency would be almost enough reason for me not to use such a plugin.

Anyhow, you already linked the responsible plugin and its readme also tells you what to do: