The server has access to multiple slave nodes to build the job (slave agent launched on Unix machines through SSH). When a maven2 job that uses PMD Analysis report in its configuration lands on a slave where it did not ran the time before we get the following error right at the start of the compilation.

PMDSuccessfully parsed file /slave1/workspace/project_name/target/pmd.xml of module Project Name with 0 warnings.
[PMD] File encoding has not been set in pom.xml, using platform encoding UTF-8, i.e. build is platform dependent (see <a href="http://docs.codehaus.org/display/MAVENUSER/POM+Element+for+Source+File+Encoding">Maven FAQ</a>).
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[ERROR] FATAL ERROR
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] No reference build found for project_name » Project Name #14
[INFO] ------------------------------------------------------------------------
[INFO] Trace
java.util.NoSuchElementException: No reference build found for project_name » Project Name #14
at hudson.plugins.analysis.core.BuildHistory.getReferenceBuild(BuildHistory.java:93)
at hudson.plugins.analysis.core.BuildHistory.hasReferenceBuild(BuildHistory.java:105)
at hudson.plugins.analysis.core.BuildResult.initialize(BuildResult.java:284)
at hudson.plugins.analysis.core.BuildResult.<init>(BuildResult.java:218)
at hudson.plugins.pmd.PmdResult.<init>(PmdResult.java:34)
at hudson.plugins.pmd.PmdReporterResult.<init>(PmdReporterResult.java:28)
at hudson.plugins.pmd.PmdReporter.createResult(PmdReporter.java:122)
at hudson.plugins.pmd.PmdReporter.createResult(PmdReporter.java:27)
at hudson.plugins.analysis.core.HealthAwareReporter$1.call(HealthAwareReporter.java:250)
at hudson.plugins.analysis.core.HealthAwareReporter$1.call(HealthAwareReporter.java:248)
at hudson.maven.MavenBuild$ProxyImpl.execute(MavenBuild.java:396)
at hudson.maven.MavenBuild$ProxyImpl2.execute(MavenBuild.java:469)
at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor365.invoke(Unknown Source)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
at hudson.model.Executor$1.call(Executor.java:429)
at hudson.util.InterceptingProxy$1.invoke(InterceptingProxy.java:23)
at $Proxy31.execute(Unknown Source)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
at hudson.remoting.RemoteInvocationHandler$RPCRequest.perform(RemoteInvocationHandler.java:274)
at hudson.remoting.RemoteInvocationHandler$RPCRequest.call(RemoteInvocationHandler.java:255)
at hudson.remoting.RemoteInvocationHandler$RPCRequest.call(RemoteInvocationHandler.java:215)
at hudson.remoting.UserRequest.perform(UserRequest.java:118)
at hudson.remoting.UserRequest.perform(UserRequest.java:48)
at hudson.remoting.Request$2.run(Request.java:270)
at java.util.concurrent.Executors$RunnableAdapter.call(Executors.java:441)
at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync.innerRun(FutureTask.java:303)
at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:138)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.runTask(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:886)
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:908)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:619)