JCenter is going into sunset again (https://jfrog.com/blog/jcenter-sunset/). Since quite some time, docToolchain does not reference JCenter anymore. But it seems that deep down in the Gradle code, there where still some mechanisms which resolved dependencies via JCenter.

Now that JCenter redirects to Maven Central, we noticed that there where some dependencies which are not available in Maven Central.

For grolifant and okhttp-digest, we could modify the version used: https://github.com/docToolchain/docToolchain/pull/1416/files#diff-3433324f9a2bbfe886e6234c6f7e08522a1a63d4cb55e50555310dbc87a26d6eR15

For markdown_to_asciidoc, the coordinates changed and with them the minimal Java Version: https://github.com/docToolchain/docToolchain/pull/1416/files#diff-0849704cf63a51fc06de310463839c4dd6e238297c41f8431abb1d019c94ac7eL48

Since docToolchain consists of scripts, we could add some logik that if you are below JDK 17, docToolchain still runs but exportMarkdown will be disabled.

To make docToolchain more stable, we added a new tutorial with some thoughts about how to use docToolchain in an Enterprise environment: Enterprise docToolchain. In this special case, a corporate proxy for the dependencies would have safed you from a disruption.

Why are those old dependencies in docToolchain?

Well, docToolchain relies on many great libraries which already run in a stable way for quite some time. There was no need to update them in the past.

But to be honest, some are also hard to upgrade. This is why there is a replacement for jBake in the pipeline. A lightweight version with only the feature set which docToolchain uses with less dependencies.