Impossible to restart a Confluence server
Asked by Fr?d?ric Tardieu:

Hello,

We have the following setup:

* Active Directory for user management,
* JIRA version 6.4, connected to the AD,
* Confluence build number 5983, connected to JIRA.

This setup was running fine until we had to restart Confluence. But Confluence never starts again normally, with the following stack trace:

```
com.atlassian.crowd.exception.OperationFailedException: Error from Crowd server propagated to here via REST API (check the Crowd server logs for details): Class type for return values ('interface com.atlassian.crowd.model.group.GroupWithAttributes') is not 'String' or 'Group'
```

(see the full stack trace at the end of this question).

We did not change anything in the setup (from what I know): is there a way to restart Confluence without the connection to JIRA for user management? If yes, is there a configuration file or something to edit to do so?

Thanks a lot, this is a blocking issue...!

Fred

```
com.atlassian.crowd.exception.OperationFailedException: Error from Crowd server propagated to here via REST API (check the Crowd server logs for details): Class type for return values ('interface com.atlassian.crowd.model.group.GroupWithAttributes') is not 'String' or 'Group'
 at com.atlassian.crowd.integration.rest.service.RestCrowdClient.handleCommonExceptions(RestCrowdClient.java:1507)
 at com.atlassian.crowd.integration.rest.service.RestCrowdClient.searchGroupsWithAttributes(RestCrowdClient.java:578)
 at com.atlassian.crowd.directory.RemoteCrowdDirectory.searchGroups(RemoteCrowdDirectory.java:541)
 at com.atlassian.crowd.directory.ldap.cache.RemoteDirectoryCacheRefresher.findAllRemoteGroups(RemoteDirectoryCacheRefresher.java:80)
 at com.atlassian.crowd.directory.ldap.cache.RemoteDirectoryCacheRefresher.synchroniseAllGroups(RemoteDirectoryCacheRefresher.java:108)
 at com.atlassian.crowd.directory.ldap.cache.AbstractCacheRefresher.synchroniseAll(AbstractCacheRefresher.java:91)
 at com.atlassian.crowd.directory.ldap.cache.EventTokenChangedCacheRefresher.synchroniseAll(EventTokenChangedCacheRefresher.java:67)
 at com.atlassian.crowd.directory.DbCachingRemoteDirectory.synchroniseCache(DbCachingRemoteDirectory.java:1122)
 at com.atlassian.crowd.manager.directory.DirectorySynchroniserImpl.synchronise(DirectorySynchroniserImpl.java:76)
 at com.atlassian.crowd.directory.DbCachingDirectoryPoller.pollChanges(DbCachingDirectoryPoller.java:50)
 at com.atlassian.crowd.manager.directory.monitor.poller.DirectoryPollerJobRunner.runJob(DirectoryPollerJobRunner.java:93)
 at com.atlassian.scheduler.core.JobLauncher.runJob(JobLauncher.java:135)
 at com.atlassian.scheduler.core.JobLauncher.launchAndBuildResponse(JobLauncher.java:101)
 at com.atlassian.scheduler.core.JobLauncher.launch(JobLauncher.java:80)
 at com.atlassian.scheduler.quartz1.Quartz1Job.execute(Quartz1Job.java:32)
 at org.quartz.core.JobRunShell.run(JobRunShell.java:223)
 at com.atlassian.confluence.schedule.quartz.ConfluenceQuartzThreadPool.lambda$runInThread$46(ConfluenceQuartzThreadPool.java:19)
 at com.atlassian.confluence.schedule.quartz.ConfluenceQuartzThreadPool$$Lambda$91/417480357.run(Unknown Source)
 at org.quartz.simpl.SimpleThreadPool$WorkerThread.run(SimpleThreadPool.java:549)
Caused by: com.atlassian.crowd.integration.rest.service.CrowdRestException: Class type for return values ('interface com.atlassian.crowd.model.group.GroupWithAttributes') is not 'String' or 'Group'
 at com.atlassian.crowd.integration.rest.service.RestExecutor$MethodExecutor.throwError(RestExecutor.java:656)
 at com.atlassian.crowd.integration.rest.service.RestExecutor$MethodExecutor.andReceive(RestExecutor.java:485)
 at com.atlassian.crowd.integration.rest.service.RestCrowdClient.searchGroupsWithAttributes(RestCrowdClient.java:574)
 ... 17 more
2015-09-07 15:52:46,228 INFO [localhost-startStop-1] [com.atlassian.confluence.lifecycle] init Confluence is ready to serve
2015-09-07 15:52:55,196 ERROR [pool-2-thread-1] [confluence.impl.startup.ConfluenceStartAnalyticsEventPublisher] tryPublishEvent Failed to publish confluence.start event
java.lang.NullPointerException: null value
 at com.google.common.base.Preconditions.checkNotNull(Preconditions.java:204)
 at com.google.common.collect.ImmutableMap.entryOf(ImmutableMap.java:139)
 at com.google.common.collect.ImmutableMap$Builder.put(ImmutableMap.java:178)
 at com.atlassian.confluence.impl.startup.ConfluenceStartAnalyticsEventFactory.lambda$populateDatabaseProperties$196(ConfluenceStartAnalyticsEventFactory.java:138)
 at com.atlassian.confluence.impl.startup.ConfluenceStartAnalyticsEventFactory$$Lambda$111/68420220.doInConnection(Unknown Source)
 at org.springframework.jdbc.core.JdbcTemplate.execute(JdbcTemplate.java:342)
 at com.atlassian.confluence.impl.startup.ConfluenceStartAnalyticsEventFactory.populateDatabaseProperties(ConfluenceStartAnalyticsEventFactory.java:134)
 at com.atlassian.confluence.impl.startup.ConfluenceStartAnalyticsEventFactory.lambda$createConfluenceStartEvent$195(ConfluenceStartAnalyticsEventFactory.java:78)
 at com.atlassian.confluence.impl.startup.ConfluenceStartAnalyticsEventFactory$$Lambda$110/1948092176.doInTransaction(Unknown Source)
 at org.springframework.transaction.support.TransactionTemplate.execute(TransactionTemplate.java:128)
 at com.atlassian.confluence.impl.startup.ConfluenceStartAnalyticsEventFactory.createConfluenceStartEvent(ConfluenceStartAnalyticsEventFactory.java:71)
 at com.atlassian.confluence.impl.startup.ConfluenceStartAnalyticsEventPublisher.tryPublishEvent(ConfluenceStartAnalyticsEventPublisher.java:99)
 at com.atlassian.confluence.impl.startup.ConfluenceStartAnalyticsEventPublisher$$Lambda$102/870294875.run(Unknown Source)
 at java.util.concurrent.Executors$RunnableAdapter.call(Executors.java:511)
 at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:266)
 at java.util.concurrent.ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor$ScheduledFutureTask.access$201(ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor.java:180)
 at java.util.concurrent.ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor$ScheduledFutureTask.run(ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor.java:293)
 at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1142)
 at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:617)
 at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)
```


Answers:
author: Taha Khanzada
body: Hi Frederic,

You are using Active Directory or JIRA for Confluence User Management ? What is your version of confluence ?

May be you have encountered this bug - <https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONF-38736>

Taha

comments: author: Fr?d?ric Tardieu
body: Hi Taha,Yes we are using Active Directory, with Jira 6.4, so looks like the bug you mention is the right one... Then an upgrade to Jira 6.4.1 seems to be mandatory...Thanks a lot,Fred


author: Fr?d?ric Tardieu
body: Hi Taha,Everything is OK after JIRA upgrade to 6.4.11, and Confluence restart.Thanks,Fred