Due to the changes to Maven Central setup on June 18th 2018, effectively banning TLSv1 and TLSv1.1, when using Java 7 Gradle versions that encode the Maven Central HTTPS url can no longer download artifacts.

See https://central.sonatype.org/articles/2018/May/04/discontinue-support-for-tlsv11-and-below/ for etails.

Note that this issue will affect JCenter as of June 24th 2018 - see https://jfrog.com/knowledge-base/why-am-i-failing-to-work-with-jfrog-saas-service-with-tls-1-0-1-1/

Status of Gradle versions:

• Older than Gradle 2.1, unaffected.
• Gradle versions 2.1-2.14.1 and using Java 6, affected
  • Use a http URL for maven central and not mavenCentral()
• Gradle versions 3.0-4.8 and using Java 7
  • Use Java newer than 1.7.0_131-b31 or if not possible
  • Use a http URL for maven central and not mavenCentral()
• Gradle versions 3.0-4.8 and using Java 8+, unaffected.