diff --git a/pom.xml b/pom.xml
index d73da7f15b..077d68bcea 100644
--- a/pom.xml
+++ b/pom.xml
@@ -132,7 +132,8 @@
 			<plugin>
 				<groupId>org.apache.maven.plugins</groupId>
 				<artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
-				<version>2.20</version>
+				<!-- newer versions seem to not show stacktraces in Netbeans -->
+				<version>2.18</version>
 				<configuration>
 					<enableAssertions>true</enableAssertions>
 					<argLine>-Xmx512m</argLine>