diff --git a/src/Plugin/PhpUnit.php b/src/Plugin/PhpUnit.php
index f7988b2e..d45b347d 100644
--- a/src/Plugin/PhpUnit.php
+++ b/src/Plugin/PhpUnit.php
@@ -42,10 +42,8 @@ class PhpUnit extends Plugin implements ZeroConfigPluginInterface
      */
     protected $buildBranchLocation;
 
-    /**
-     * @var string[] Raw options from the config file
-     */
-    protected $options = [];
+    /** @var PhpUnitOptions*/
+    protected $options;
 
     /**
      * @return string
@@ -83,7 +81,7 @@ class PhpUnit extends Plugin implements ZeroConfigPluginInterface
     /**
      * Check if the plugin can be executed without any configurations
      *
-     * @param         $stage
+     * @param string  $stage
      * @param Builder $builder
      * @param Build   $build
      *
@@ -140,9 +138,9 @@ class PhpUnit extends Plugin implements ZeroConfigPluginInterface
     /**
      * Run the tests defined in a PHPUnit config file or in a specific directory.
      *
-     * @param $directory
-     * @param $configFile
-     * @param string $logFormat
+     * @param string      $directory
+     * @param string|null $configFile
+     * @param string      $logFormat
      *
      * @return bool|mixed
      *
diff --git a/src/Plugin/Util/PhpUnitResultJunit.php b/src/Plugin/Util/PhpUnitResultJunit.php
index 3f41cb8f..c16a4ebc 100644
--- a/src/Plugin/Util/PhpUnitResultJunit.php
+++ b/src/Plugin/Util/PhpUnitResultJunit.php
@@ -17,13 +17,13 @@ class PhpUnitResultJunit extends PhpUnitResult
      */
     public function parse()
     {
-        $suites = simplexml_load_file($this->outputFile);
-
         // Reset the parsing variables
         $this->results  = [];
         $this->errors   = [];
         $this->failures = 0;
 
+        $suites = $this->loadResultFile();
+
         foreach ($suites->xpath('//testcase') as $testCase) {
             $this->parseTestcase($testCase);
         }
@@ -127,4 +127,62 @@ class PhpUnitResultJunit extends PhpUnitResult
 
         return $msg;
     }
+
+    /**
+     * @return \SimpleXMLElement
+     */
+    private function loadResultFile()
+    {
+        if (!file_exists($this->outputFile) || 0 === filesize($this->outputFile)) {
+            $this->internalProblem('empty output file');
+
+            return new \SimpleXMLElement('<empty/>'); // new empty element
+        }
+
+        try {
+            $suites = simplexml_load_file($this->outputFile);
+        } catch (\Exception $ex) {
+            $suites = null;
+        } catch (\Throwable $ex) { // since php7
+            $suites = null;
+        }
+        if (!$suites) {
+            // from https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7766455/how-to-handle-invalid-unicode-with-simplexml/8092672#8092672
+            $oldUse = libxml_use_internal_errors(true);
+            libxml_clear_errors();
+            $dom = new \DOMDocument("1.0", "UTF-8");
+            $dom->strictErrorChecking = false;
+            $dom->validateOnParse = false;
+            $dom->recover = true;
+            $dom->loadXML(strtr(
+                file_get_contents($this->outputFile),
+                array('&quot;' => "'") // &quot; in attribute names may mislead the parser
+            ));
+
+            /**
+             * @var \LibXMLError
+             */
+            $xmlError = libxml_get_last_error();
+            if ($xmlError) {
+                $warning = sprintf('L%s C%s: %s', $xmlError->line, $xmlError->column, $xmlError->message);
+                print 'WARNING: ignored errors while reading phpunit result, '.$warning."\n";
+            }
+            if (!$dom->hasChildNodes()) {
+                $this->internalProblem('xml file with no content');
+            }
+            $suites = simplexml_import_dom($dom);
+
+            libxml_clear_errors();
+            libxml_use_internal_errors($oldUse);
+        }
+
+        return $suites;
+    }
+
+    private function internalProblem($description)
+    {
+        throw new \Exception($description);
+
+        // alternative to error throwing: append to $this->errors
+    }
 }