Confluence won't start: 500 error
Asked by Dusty:

HTTP Status 500 - {#toc-hId-1817356219}
=======================================

*** ** * ** ***

**type** Exception report

**message**

**description** The server encountered an internal error () that prevented it from fulfilling this request.

**exception**

```
com.atlassian.util.concurrent.LazyReference$InitializationException: java.lang.NullPointerException	com.atlassian.util.concurrent.LazyReference.getInterruptibly(LazyReference.java:149)	com.atlassian.util.concurrent.LazyReference.get(LazyReference.java:112)	com.atlassian.confluence.setup.ConfluenceEncodingFilter.getGlobalSettings(ConfluenceEncodingFilter.java:45)	com.atlassian.confluence.setup.ConfluenceEncodingFilter.getEncodingInternal(ConfluenceEncodingFilter.java:35)	com.atlassian.confluence.setup.ConfluenceEncodingFilter.getEncoding(ConfluenceEncodingFilter.java:27)	com.atlassian.core.filters.encoding.AbstractEncodingFilter.doFilter(AbstractEncodingFilter.java:38)	com.atlassian.core.filters.AbstractHttpFilter.doFilter(AbstractHttpFilter.java:31)	com.atlassian.core.filters.HeaderSanitisingFilter.doFilter(HeaderSanitisingFilter.java:44)	com.atlassian.confluence.servlet.FourOhFourErrorLoggingFilter.doFilter(FourOhFourErrorLoggingFilter.java:65)
```

**root cause**

```
java.lang.NullPointerException	com.atlassian.spring.container.ContainerManager.getComponent(ContainerManager.java:33)	com.atlassian.confluence.util.LazyComponentReference$Accessor.get(LazyComponentReference.java:46)	com.atlassian.util.concurrent.Lazy$Strong.create(Lazy.java:85)	com.atlassian.util.concurrent.LazyReference$Sync.run(LazyReference.java:321)	com.atlassian.util.concurrent.LazyReference.getInterruptibly(LazyReference.java:143)	com.atlassian.util.concurrent.LazyReference.get(LazyReference.java:112)	com.atlassian.confluence.setup.ConfluenceEncodingFilter.getGlobalSettings(ConfluenceEncodingFilter.java:45)	com.atlassian.confluence.setup.ConfluenceEncodingFilter.getEncodingInternal(ConfluenceEncodingFilter.java:35)	com.atlassian.confluence.setup.ConfluenceEncodingFilter.getEncoding(ConfluenceEncodingFilter.java:27)	com.atlassian.core.filters.encoding.AbstractEncodingFilter.doFilter(AbstractEncodingFilter.java:38)	com.atlassian.core.filters.AbstractHttpFilter.doFilter(AbstractHttpFilter.java:31)	com.atlassian.core.filters.HeaderSanitisingFilter.doFilter(HeaderSanitisingFilter.java:44)	com.atlassian.confluence.servlet.FourOhFourErrorLoggingFilter.doFilter(FourOhFourErrorLoggingFilter.java:65)
```

**note** The full stack trace of the root cause is available in the Apache Tomcat/6.0.35 logs.

We keep getting this error with Confluence. We've rebooted the box to try and remedy with no luck. The only change was last week a plugin was added, but it was working after that. Help!

-Dusty


Answers:
author: Giuliano C.
body: Hey Dusty,

As solved in our support ticket case, the error was that the database credentials have expired. So, for other users that might need to take a look at this answers thread, that was the response from Atlassian:

> Generally, this error displayed in the logs and the screen is caused by Confluence not being able to connect to the database: the credentials set in your confluence.cfg.xml file are not valid.Another possibility would be that the database password had expired, and would need to be reseted and the server needs to be rebooted. And other one is that the table really doesn't exist - if there was a failed upgrade.
>
> So, basically, what we need you to do is:
>
> 1. Check if \<CONFLUENCE-HOME\> is not writable (check the permission of the directory and sub-directories)
> 2. Confluence database is not available - check the connection parameters in \<CONFLUENCE-HOME\>/confluence.cfg.xml and verify if the database user has access to all confluence tables and if the password is the same.
>
> If that doesn't work, please, attach your latest atlassian-confluence.log file which is inside \<Confluence Home/logs\> directory so we can double check if there could be a possible different root cause.
>
Cheers,

Giuliano


author: Michael Diep
body: I have seen over 10 tickets for this problem, and none of them have fixed my problem.


Tags: confluence-administration