confluence will not start
Asked by Jerome McHugh:

The following error is presented when trying to start confluence.

I have performed the following action but the problem was not resolved.

The systems i run in a VirtualBox CentOS 7 guest machine.

The error occurred after I created a clone of the system, but no other changes were made.

Resolution 1 {#toc-hId-1763868346}
----------------------------------

### Linux {#toc-hId--984802120}

Do not run Confluence as **root** , and ensure that the user running Confluence has **full read and write access to****the home folder** . This can be set by running `chmod -R` with the appropriate permissions, to apply them recursively to each sub folder. An example of the right permissions would be:

    chown -R confluence.confluence <confluence-install-folder>chown -R confluence.confluence <confluence-home-folder>chmod -R u=rwx,go-rwx <confluence-install-folder>chmod -R u=rwx,go-rwx <confluence-home-folder>

++***This is the error that presents:***++

The SystemInformationService could not be retrieved from the container. Therefore very limited information is available in this error report.   
The SystemInformationService could not be retrieved due to the following error: java.lang.IllegalStateException: Spring Application context has not been set

### Cause {#toc-hId-758008215}

com.atlassian.util.concurrent.LazyReference$InitializationException: java.lang.IllegalStateException: Spring Application context has not been set  
at com.atlassian.util.concurrent.LazyReference.getInterruptibly(LazyReference.java:149)

caused by: java.lang.IllegalStateException: Spring Application context has not been set  
at com.atlassian.spring.container.SpringContainerContext.getComponent(SpringContainerContext.java:48)

#### Stack Trace:\[hide\] {#toc-hId--1990662251}

```
com.atlassian.util.concurrent.LazyReference$InitializationException: java.lang.IllegalStateException: Spring Application context has not been set	at com.atlassian.util.concurrent.LazyReference.getInterruptibly(LazyReference.java:149)	at com.atlassian.util.concurrent.LazyReference.get(LazyReference.java:112)	at com.atlassian.confluence.setup.webwork.ConfluenceXWorkTransactionInterceptor.getTransactionManager(ConfluenceXWorkTransactionInterceptor.java:28)	at com.atlassian.xwork.interceptors.XWorkTransactionInterceptor.intercept(XWorkTransactionInterceptor.java:56)	at com.opensymphony.xwork.DefaultActionInvocation.invoke(DefaultActionInvocation.java:165)	at com.atlassian.confluence.xwork.SetupIncompleteInterceptor.intercept(SetupIncompleteInterceptor.java:38)	at com.opensymphony.xwork.DefaultActionInvocation.invoke(DefaultActionInvocation.java:165)	...
util.threads.TaskThread$WrappingRunnable.run(TaskThread.java:61)	at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:745)Caused by: java.lang.IllegalStateException: Spring Application context has not been set	at com.atlassian.spring.container.SpringContainerContext.getComponent(SpringContainerContext.java:48)	at com.atlassian.spring.container.ContainerManager.getComponent(ContainerManager.java:33)	at com.atlassian.confluence.util.LazyComponentReference$Accessor.get(LazyComponentReference.java:42)	at com.atlassian.util.concurrent.Lazy$Strong.create(Lazy.java:85)	at com.atlassian.util.concurrent.LazyReference$Sync.run(LazyReference.java:321)	at com.atlassian.util.concurrent.LazyReference.getInterruptibly(LazyReference.java:143)	... 179 more        
```

### Referer URL {#toc-hId--51338411}

http://\<hostname\>/bootstrap/selectsetupstep.action


Answers:
author: Shannon S
body: Jerome,

Is this a new installation? Did you originally install Confluence as root and now you're not running as root per the recommendation?

On [the page you mentioned,](https://confluence.atlassian.com/confkb/confluence-does-not-start-due-to-spring-application-context-has-not-been-set-218278311.html) there are a total of 7 resolutions. Can you confirm you were able to try the other resolutions as well?

Kind Regards,  
Shannon

comments: author: Jerome McHugh
body: This is NOT a new installation.... running since Jan 2016.

Is there a way to extract and save site content in the event that I have to re-install? or when/if I reinstall will the content be available as I am using a mySQL database?