Atlassian Confluence 5.5.3 won't start.
Asked by Derek Derek:

We've been on an older version of Confluence for ages dues to some issues with upgrading some of our content and it's worked just fine this entire time.

Last week it crashed but a reboot of the server fixed it but this week it's crashing and we can't get it back up.

Here's one of the error's we've gotten:

Any ideas?

SEVERE: Exception Processing ErrorPage\[errorCode=404, location=/fourohfour.action\]  
java.lang.NullPointerException  
at com.atlassian.seraph.filter.SecurityFilter.getSecurityConfig(SecurityFilter.java:244)  
at com.atlassian.seraph.filter.SecurityFilter.getAuthenticationContext(SecurityFilter.java:251)  
at com.atlassian.confluence.web.filter.ConfluenceSecurityFilter.doFilter(ConfluenceSecurityFilter.java:31)  
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:243)  
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:210)  
at com.atlassian.seraph.filter.BaseLoginFilter.doFilter(BaseLoginFilter.java:150)  
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:243)  
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:210)  
at com.atlassian.plugin.servlet.filter.IteratingFilterChain.doFilter(IteratingFilterChain.java:46)  
at com.atlassian.plugin.servlet.filter.DelegatingPluginFilter$1.doFilter(DelegatingPluginFilter.java:70)  
at com.atlassian.prettyurls.filter.PrettyUrlsCombinedMatchDispatcherFilter.doFilter(PrettyUrlsCombinedMatchDispatcherFilter.java:61)  
at com.atlassian.plugin.servlet.filter.DelegatingPluginFilter.doFilter(DelegatingPluginFilter.java:78)  
at com.atlassian.plugin.servlet.filter.IteratingFilterChain.doFilter(IteratingFilterChain.java:42)  
at com.atlassian.plugin.servlet.filter.ServletFilterModuleContainerFilter.doFilter(ServletFilterModuleContainerFilter.java:77)  
at com.atlassian.plugin.servlet.filter.ServletFilterModuleContainerFilter.doFilter(ServletFilterModuleContainerFilter.java:63)  
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:243)  
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:210)  
at com.atlassian.plugin.servlet.filter.IteratingFilterChain.doFilter(IteratingFilterChain.java:46)  
at com.atlassian.plugin.servlet.filter.DelegatingPluginFilter$1.doFilter(DelegatingPluginFilter.java:70)  
at com.atlassian.prettyurls.filter.PrettyUrlsCombinedMatchDispatcherFilter.doFilter(PrettyUrlsCombinedMatchDispatcherFilter.java:61)  
at com.atlassian.plugin.servlet.filter.DelegatingPluginFilter.doFilter(DelegatingPluginFilter.java:78)  
at com.atlassian.plugin.servlet.filter.IteratingFilterChain.doFilter(IteratingFilterChain.java:42)  
at com.atlassian.plugin.servlet.filter.ServletFilterModuleContainerFilter.doFilter(ServletFilterModuleContainerFilter.java:77)  
at com.atlassian.plugin.servlet.filter.ServletFilterModuleContainerFilter.doFilter(ServletFilterModuleContainerFilter.java:63)  
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:243)  
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:210)  
at com.atlassian.confluence.web.filter.DebugFilter.doFilter(DebugFilter.java:50)  
at com.atlassian.core.filters.AbstractHttpFilter.doFilter(AbstractHttpFilter.java:31)  
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.internalDoFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:243)  
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationFilterChain.doFilter(ApplicationFilterChain.java:210)  
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.invoke(ApplicationDispatcher.java:749)  
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.processRequest(ApplicationDispatcher.java:489)  
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.doForward(ApplicationDispatcher.java:412)  
at org.apache.catalina.core.ApplicationDispatcher.forward(ApplicationDispatcher.java:339)  
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.custom(StandardHostValve.java:467)  
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.status(StandardHostValve.java:338)  
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHostValve.invoke(StandardHostValve.java:203)  
at org.apache.catalina.valves.ErrorReportValve.invoke(ErrorReportValve.java:100)  
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngineValve.invoke(StandardEngineValve.java:118)  
at org.apache.catalina.connector.CoyoteAdapter.service(CoyoteAdapter.java:408)  
at org.apache.coyote.http11.AbstractHttp11Processor.process(AbstractHttp11Processor.java:1041)  
at org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol$AbstractConnectionHandler.process(AbstractProtocol.java:603)  
at org.apache.tomcat.util.net.JIoEndpoint$SocketProcessor.run(JIoEndpoint.java:310)  
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(Unknown Source)  
at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(Unknown Source)  
at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)


Answers:
author: Daniel Ebers
body: Hi Derek,

welcome to the Atlassian Community!

Just from looking at the log file you posted it is not possible to find the root cause. The message says basically that a requested page (of whatever sort) could not be found - leading to an error 404.

When you say you can't get (the application?) back up please check if something has changed on your server meanwhile including permissions of relevant directory, the avaiable disk space.  
Please also check for filesystem errors/hardware error that might have come up meanwhile.

Please kindly keep an eye on literally everything that could have changed during last restart.

In case you can provide further information from logfiles someone here in Community is more likely able saying something to the root cause.

Cheers,  
Daniel


Tags: confluence-server

server