This is an umbrella item, feel free to open child items when it becomes clear which refreshes should be avoided and how.

Opening against Odlparent, as that project provided fix for CONTROLLER-1732.

The first issue is with adding Groupbasedpolicy features to Distribution. Unfortunately, I was not able to repeat the failure reliably. First, SingleFeatureTest frequently runs out of heap space, and the exact symptoms vary between runs.

I have used this [0] Odlparent patch to increase heap space for SFT JVM, and here is a segment related to refreshes as seen in surefire karaf log [1].

2017-08-02 11:20:01,180 | INFO | pool-2-thread-1 | FeaturesServiceImpl | 8 - org.apache.karaf.features.core - 4.0.9 | org.apache.karaf.shell.ssh/4.0.9
org.apache.karaf.shell.ssh/4.0.9
2017-08-02 11:20:01,181 | INFO | pool-2-thread-1 | CommandExtension | 45 - org.apache.karaf.shell.core - 4.0.9 | Unregistering commands for bundle org.apache.karaf.shell.ssh/4.0.9
2017-08-02 11:20:01,187 | INFO | pool-2-thread-1 | FeaturesServiceImpl | 8 - org.apache.karaf.features.core - 4.0.9 | org.ops4j.pax.logging.pax-logging-service/1.8.5
org.ops4j.pax.logging.pax-logging-service/1.8.5
Refreshing bundles:
io.netty.buffer/4.1.8.Final (Wired to io.netty.common/4.1.8.Final which is being refreshed)
io.netty.codec/4.1.8.Final (Wired to io.netty.buffer/4.1.8.Final which is being refreshed)
io.netty.codec-http/4.1.8.Final (Wired to io.netty.buffer/4.1.8.Final which is being refreshed)
io.netty.common/4.1.8.Final (Should be wired to: javassist/3.20.0.GA (through [io.netty.common/4.1.8.Final] osgi.wiring.package; filter:="(&(osgi.wiring.package=javassist)(version>=3.20.0)(!(version>=4.0.0)))"; resolution:=optional))
io.netty.handler/4.1.8.Final (Wired to io.netty.common/4.1.8.Final which is being refreshed)
io.netty.resolver/4.1.8.Final (Wired to io.netty.common/4.1.8.Final which is being refreshed)
io.netty.transport/4.1.8.Final (Wired to io.netty.resolver/4.1.8.Final which is being refreshed)
io.netty.transport-native-epoll/4.1.8.Final (Wired to io.netty.transport/4.1.8.Final which is being refreshed)
org.apache.karaf.shell.ssh/4.0.9 (Wired to org.apache.sshd.core/0.14.0 which is being refreshed)
org.apache.servicemix.bundles.jasypt/1.9.2.1 (Should be wired to: javax.servlet-api/3.1.0 (through [org.apache.servicemix.bundles.jasypt/1.9.2.1] osgi.wiring.package; filter:="(osgi.wiring.package=javax.servlet)"; resolution:=optional))
org.apache.sshd.core/0.14.0 (Should be wired to: bcprov/1.57.0 (through [org.apache.sshd.core/0.14.0] osgi.wiring.package; filter:="(&(osgi.wiring.package=org.bouncycastle.crypto.prng)(version>=1.51.0)(!(version>=2.0.0)))"; resolution:=optional), bcpkix/1.57.0 (through [org.apache.sshd.core/0.14.0] osgi.wiring.package; filter:="(&(osgi.wiring.package=org.bouncycastle.openssl)(version>=1.51.0)(!(version>=2.0.0)))"; resolution:=optional))
org.opendaylight.controller.netty-config-api/0.7.0.SNAPSHOT (Wired to io.netty.transport/4.1.8.Final which is being refreshed)
org.opendaylight.mdsal.model.ietf-lisp-address-types-2015-11-05/1.0.0.SNAPSHOT (Should be wired to: org.opendaylight.honeycomb.vbd.shared-models/1.6.0.SNAPSHOT (through [org.opendaylight.mdsal.model.ietf-lisp-address-types-2015-11-05/1.0.0.SNAPSHOT] osgi.wiring.package; filter:="(osgi.wiring.package=org.opendaylight.yang.gen.v1.urn.ietf.params.xml.ns.yang.ietf.lisp.address.types.rev151105)"))
org.opendaylight.netconf.api/1.3.0.SNAPSHOT (Wired to io.netty.transport/4.1.8.Final which is being refreshed)
org.opendaylight.netconf.mapping-api/1.3.0.SNAPSHOT (Wired to org.opendaylight.netconf.api/1.3.0.SNAPSHOT which is being refreshed)
org.opendaylight.netconf.protocol-framework/1.0.0.SNAPSHOT (Wired to io.netty.transport/4.1.8.Final which is being refreshed)
org.opendaylight.netconf.util/1.3.0.SNAPSHOT (Wired to io.netty.transport/4.1.8.Final which is being refreshed)
org.ops4j.pax.jdbc.config/1.0.1 (Wired to org.apache.servicemix.bundles.jasypt/1.9.2.1 which is being refreshed)
org.ops4j.pax.logging.pax-logging-service/1.8.5 (Should be wired to: javax.mail/1.4.4 (through [org.ops4j.pax.logging.pax-logging-service/1.8.5] osgi.wiring.package; filter:="(osgi.wiring.package=javax.mail)"; resolution:=optional))

Note that one refresh is still related to bcpkix even though that should have been avoided by [2].

By the way, how can I tell which commits on Odlparent 2.0.x branch are included in latest (2.0.0) release?

[0] https://git.opendaylight.org/gerrit/#/c/61034/1
[1] https://logs.opendaylight.org/sandbox/jenkins091/integration-multipatch-test-nitrogen/7/patch_tester/distribution/features/singles/odl-integration-compatible-with-all/target/surefire-reports/org.opendaylight.odlparent.featuretest.SingleFeatureTest-output.txt.gz
[2] https://git.opendaylight.org/gerrit/60545