diff --git a/sonar/main/pom.xml b/sonar/main/pom.xml
index d188c14f56..b4ed72f4a1 100644
--- a/sonar/main/pom.xml
+++ b/sonar/main/pom.xml
@@ -103,7 +103,7 @@
                 <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
                 <version>${maven.plugin.surefire.version}</version>
                 <configuration>
-                    <argLine>@{argLine} -Duser.language=en -Duser.country=US -Xmx1024m -Djava.io.tmpdir=target/tmp -XX:-OmitStackTraceInFastThrow</argLine>
+                    <argLine>@{argLine} -Duser.language=en -Duser.country=US -Xmx1024m -Djava.io.tmpdir=${basedir}/target/tmp -XX:-OmitStackTraceInFastThrow</argLine>
                 </configuration>
             </plugin>
 		</plugins>
diff --git a/sonar/ooxml/pom.xml b/sonar/ooxml/pom.xml
index c61f42ecde..fad8ac5642 100644
--- a/sonar/ooxml/pom.xml
+++ b/sonar/ooxml/pom.xml
@@ -93,7 +93,7 @@
                 <artifactId>maven-surefire-plugin</artifactId>
                 <version>${maven.plugin.surefire.version}</version>
                 <configuration>
-                    <argLine>@{argLine} -Duser.language=en -Duser.country=US -Xmx1024m -Djava.io.tmpdir=target/tmp -XX:-OmitStackTraceInFastThrow</argLine>
+                    <argLine>@{argLine} -Duser.language=en -Duser.country=US -Xmx1024m -Djava.io.tmpdir=${basedir}/target/tmp -XX:-OmitStackTraceInFastThrow</argLine>
                 </configuration>
             </plugin>
         </plugins>
diff --git a/sonar/pom.xml b/sonar/pom.xml
index 0316403a05..87c2daf37c 100644
--- a/sonar/pom.xml
+++ b/sonar/pom.xml
@@ -117,7 +117,7 @@
                         <org.apache.poi.util.POILogger>org.apache.poi.util.NullLogger</org.apache.poi.util.POILogger>
                     </systemPropertyVariables>
                     <!-- use to following to analyze OOM issues:	-XX:+HeapDumpOnOutOfMemoryError -XX:HeapDumpPath=/tmp -->
-                    <argLine>@{argLine} -Duser.language=en -Duser.country=US -Xmx1024m -Djava.io.tmpdir=target/tmp
+                    <argLine>@{argLine} -Duser.language=en -Duser.country=US -Xmx1024m -Djava.io.tmpdir=${basedir}/target/tmp
                     </argLine>
                     <excludes>
                         <exclude>**/All*Tests.java</exclude>
diff --git a/src/testcases/org/apache/poi/hssf/usermodel/TestHSSFPictureData.java b/src/testcases/org/apache/poi/hssf/usermodel/TestHSSFPictureData.java
index d82423b86e..c65b0252d8 100644
--- a/src/testcases/org/apache/poi/hssf/usermodel/TestHSSFPictureData.java
+++ b/src/testcases/org/apache/poi/hssf/usermodel/TestHSSFPictureData.java
@@ -19,6 +19,7 @@ package org.apache.poi.hssf.usermodel;
 
 import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;
 import java.io.ByteArrayInputStream;
+import java.io.File;
 import java.io.IOException;
 import java.util.List;
 
@@ -27,7 +28,6 @@ import javax.imageio.ImageIO;
 import junit.framework.TestCase;
 
 import org.apache.poi.hssf.HSSFTestDataSamples;
-import org.junit.AfterClass;
 import org.junit.BeforeClass;
 
 /**
@@ -37,19 +37,19 @@ import org.junit.BeforeClass;
  * @author Yegor Kozlov (yegor at apache dot org)
  * @author Trejkaz (trejkaz at trypticon dot org)
  */
-public final class TestHSSFPictureData extends TestCase {
-    private static boolean cacheBefore = ImageIO.getUseCache();
-
+public final class TestHSSFPictureData extends TestCase{
     @BeforeClass
     public static void setUpClass() {
-        // disable cache to avoid strange errors related to temporary directories in CI-builds
-        ImageIO.setUseCache(false);
-    }
-
-    @AfterClass
-    public static void tearDownClass() {
-        // reset image cache to previous state
-        ImageIO.setUseCache(cacheBefore);
+        final String tmpDirProperty = System.getProperty("java.io.tmpdir");
+        if(tmpDirProperty == null || "".equals(tmpDirProperty)) {
+            return;
+        }
+        // ensure that temp-dir exists because ImageIO requires it
+        final File tmpDir = new File(tmpDirProperty);
+        if(!tmpDir.exists() && !tmpDir.mkdirs()) {
+            throw new IllegalStateException("Could not create temporary directory " + tmpDirProperty + ", full path " + tmpDir.getAbsolutePath());
+        }
+        ImageIO.setCacheDirectory(tmpDir);
     }
 
 	public void testPictures() throws IOException {