The problem

When testing that a line of code throws an expected exception, it is typical to execute that line in a try block with a fail() or assert*() on the line following. The expectation is that the expected exception will be thrown, and execution will continue in the catch block, and the fail() or assert*() will not be executed.

fail() and assert*() throw AssertionErrors, which are a subtype of Throwable. That means that if the catch block catches Throwable, then execution will always jump to the catch block, and the test will always pass.

To fix this, you usually want to catch Exception rather than Throwable. If you need to catch throwable (e.g., the expected exception is an AssertionError), then add logic in your catch block to ensure that the AssertionError that was caught is not the same one thrown by the call to fail() or assert*().

Suppression

Suppress false positives by adding the suppression annotation @SuppressWarnings("TryFailThrowable") to the enclosing element.