Maven changes the order of plugins of different profiles

I have a pom.xml where I define the same plugin (same groupId and artifactId, different execution :-) ) in two different profiles. The executions are defined in the same phase, so the order is calculated by the order from the xml:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?>
<project xmlns="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://maven.apache.org/POM/4.0.0 http://maven.apache.org/maven-v4_0_0.xsd">
    <modelVersion>4.0.0</modelVersion>
    <groupId>echo</groupId>
    <artifactId>test</artifactId>
    <name>echo-test</name>
    <version>1.0.0</version>
    <packaging>pom</packaging>
    <profiles>
        <profile>
            <id>1st-profile</id>
            <activation>
                <activeByDefault>true</activeByDefault>
            </activation>
            <build>
                <plugins>
                    <plugin>
                        <artifactId>maven-antrun-plugin</artifactId>
                        <executions>
                            <execution>
                                <id>1st-antrun-echo</id>
                                <phase>test</phase>
                                <goals>
                                    <goal>run</goal>
                                </goals>
                                <configuration>
                                    <tasks>
                                        <echo>1st antrun plugin</echo>
                                    </tasks>
                                </configuration>
                            </execution>
                        </executions>
                    </plugin>
                </plugins>
            </build>
        </profile>
        <profile>
            <id>2nd-profile</id>
            <activation>
                <activeByDefault>true</activeByDefault>
            </activation>
            <build>
                <plugins>
                    <plugin>
                        <groupId>com.soebes.maven.plugins</groupId>
                        <artifactId>maven-echo-plugin</artifactId>
                        <version>0.1</version>
                        <executions>
                            <execution>
                                <id>1st-soebes-echo</id>
                                <phase>test</phase>
                                <goals>
                                    <goal>echo</goal>
                                </goals>
                                <configuration>
                                    <echos>
                                        <echo>1st echo-plugin</echo>
                                    </echos>
                                </configuration>
                            </execution>
                        </executions>
                    </plugin>
                    <plugin>
                        <artifactId>maven-antrun-plugin</artifactId>
                        <executions>
                            <execution>
                                <id>2nd-antrun-echo</id>
                                <phase>test</phase>
                                <goals>
                                    <goal>run</goal>
                                </goals>
                                <configuration>
                                    <tasks>
                                        <echo>2nd antrun plugin</echo>
                                    </tasks>
                                </configuration>
                            </execution>
                        </executions>
                    </plugin>
                </plugins>
            </build>
        </profile>
    </profiles>
</project>

All the plugin executions are defined in the test phase, therefore I would expect the following order:

1st antrun plugin
1st echo-plugin
2nd antrun plugin

However, since the antrun-plugins are merged, I get this output:

1st echo-plugin    
1st antrun plugin    
2nd antrun plugin

This command explains why is this happening: mvn help:effective-pom

Is there any other solution to preserve the order other than to introduce a new phases? Our project is really big and this is a very simplified example.

Why is this limitation of maven to merge the plugins into one with multiple executions?

Solution

In my experience this is one of the biggest bugs in Maven. If you have more than one configuration for the same plugin in different profiles, the order is simply unpredictable. I even observed, that I had some plugin order in project B in a given phase, and as soon as some of the same plugins got a config in a parent project (not even in the same phase), the order was ruined.

There is an obviously falsely closed bug related to this at https://issues.apache.org/jira/browse/MNG-2258.

Possible workarounds

Try to shift some of the plugins to previous phase if possible (prepare-test used for some of the plugins and test for the rest)
Try to replace the functionality of multiple plugins with a groovy-maven-plugin script (quite handy with the ant integration, and you reach the list of the active profiles in the script)
Write your own mojo and call the plugins in the correct order (See https://github.com/TimMoore/mojo-executor)
Give a try to gradle. Maybe it fits your needs, and it comes with a lot of good things from Maven

I do not think that there is any more you can do right now.