diff --git a/asciidoc/release-notes.adoc b/asciidoc/release-notes.adoc
index 782e75d..d0fd7c3 100644
--- a/asciidoc/release-notes.adoc
+++ b/asciidoc/release-notes.adoc
@@ -43,6 +43,7 @@
 *List of changes since Ivy 2.5.2:*
 
 - FIX: trying to set safe XML features causes SAXExceptions when used with certain XML parsers (jira:IVY-1647[])
+- FIX: some unit tests failed on Java 8 (jira:IVY-1648[]) (Thanks to Adrien Piquerez)
 
 ////
  Samples :
diff --git a/test/java/org/apache/ivy/core/resolve/ResolveTest.java b/test/java/org/apache/ivy/core/resolve/ResolveTest.java
index 5c61142..4dba1e5 100644
--- a/test/java/org/apache/ivy/core/resolve/ResolveTest.java
+++ b/test/java/org/apache/ivy/core/resolve/ResolveTest.java
@@ -323,9 +323,8 @@
             int expectedNumberOfDependencies) {
         Ivy ivy = new Ivy();
         Throwable th = null;
-        Properties p = System.getProperties();
+        Properties p = (Properties) System.getProperties().clone();
         try {
-            System.setProperties(new Properties());
             System.setProperty(XMLHelper.ALLOW_DOCTYPE_PROCESSING, "true");
             if (externalResourcesSystemProperty != null) {
                 System.setProperty(XMLHelper.EXTERNAL_RESOURCES, externalResourcesSystemProperty);
diff --git a/test/java/org/apache/ivy/plugins/parser/xml/XmlModuleUpdaterTest.java b/test/java/org/apache/ivy/plugins/parser/xml/XmlModuleUpdaterTest.java
index c38eca3..df0ce6a 100644
--- a/test/java/org/apache/ivy/plugins/parser/xml/XmlModuleUpdaterTest.java
+++ b/test/java/org/apache/ivy/plugins/parser/xml/XmlModuleUpdaterTest.java
@@ -37,6 +37,7 @@
 import java.util.HashMap;
 import java.util.List;
 import java.util.Map;
+import java.util.Properties;
 
 import org.apache.ivy.Ivy;
 import org.apache.ivy.core.module.descriptor.Artifact;
@@ -47,14 +48,28 @@
 import org.apache.ivy.core.settings.IvySettings;
 import org.apache.ivy.plugins.repository.BasicResource;
 import org.apache.ivy.util.FileUtil;
+import org.apache.ivy.util.XMLHelper;
 import org.junit.After;
+import org.junit.Before;
 import org.junit.Test;
 
 public class XmlModuleUpdaterTest {
 
+    // Java8 tries to load ivy.xsd mentioned in
+    // xsd:noNamespaceLocation via https bypassing our UriResolver so
+    // we must allow using http(s) (and thus all) and external entities
+    private final Properties p = (Properties) System.getProperties().clone();
+
+    @Before
+    public void setUp() {
+        System.setProperty(XMLHelper.ALLOW_DOCTYPE_PROCESSING, "true");
+        System.setProperty(XMLHelper.EXTERNAL_RESOURCES, "all");
+    }
+
     @After
     public void tearDown() {
         XmlModuleDescriptorUpdater.LINE_SEPARATOR = System.lineSeparator();
+        System.setProperties(p);
     }
 
     @Test