[Confluence] Crash on startup after initial setup
Asked by thesefer:

After the initial setup confluence crashes on startup due to a memory leak (I guess). I tried to evaluate it on a fresh debian 8 vm (edit: 2 cores, 4gb ram), no changes made, nothing modified, 100% clean setup. I used the setup.bin ...

this is the catalina.2017-11-08.log

<https://pastebin.com/X2f6pGcE>


Answers:
author: Dave Theodore [Coyote Creek Consulting]
body: Are you using a Oracle version of Java? We commonly see this sort of thing when using OpenJDK.

comments: author: thesefer
body: I am using the setup.bin which provides the JRE per default... But yes, I installed oracle java, too just to be sure. It doesn't matter whether it is installed or not. After the initial setup it keeps crashing with the**log provided in the main post** . (<http://www.webupd8.org/2015/02/install-oracle-java-9-in-ubuntu-linux.html>)


author: Dave Theodore [Coyote Creek Consulting]
body: Only Java 8 is [supported](https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/supported-platforms-207488198.html), so you need to use that version. Can you verify that the application is starting with the correct Java version with a \`ps -ef\|grep java\`

Also, make sure SElinux is either disabled or in permissive mode.

Try [installing the "Standalone" version](https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/installing-confluence-on-linux-from-archive-file-255362363.html) and manually configuring it. It's dead simple and if that works, it's easy to modify the start script that the bin installer dumped in to /etc/init.d to point to the Standalone version.


author: thesefer
body: double post


author: thesefer
body: I can give it a try using java 8 and the standalone version but this won't fix the problem with the installer provided. As I said it doesn't matter whether I have java 9 installed or not it is still crashing on startup AFTER the initialization process

Let me quote your setup guide for the linux installer (<https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/installing-confluence-on-linux-143556824.html>):
> "The Confluence **installer includes Java (JRE)** and Tomcat, so you **don't need to install these separately**."

This means it is not a fault due to the java version provided and as I said before it crashes in both cases.

Let me get this clear. I am able to get the instance up and running. I was able to get through the evaluation process (entering the license generated and such) up to the point where I am asked to create the first page (which is possible, too). A small problem arises as I am not able to load the wysiwyg-editor (error comes up with slow loading) but the instance is stable and I can head to the main page with no problem.

After this point whenever the confluence instance is stopped-started or restarted it crashes to the log given!

EDIT: Still crashing, standalone installation

Log: <https://pastebin.com/fjQRkJ8M>

```
./bin/start-confluence.sh

To run Confluence in the foreground, start the server with start-confluence.sh -fg
executing as current user
If you encounter issues starting up Confluence, please see the Installation guide at http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/DOC/Confluence+Installation+Guide

Server startup logs are located in /home/sk/atlassian-confluence-6.5.0/logs/catalina.out
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Using Java: /usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle/bin/java
2017-11-08 19:59:13,139 INFO [main] [atlassian.confluence.bootstrap.SynchronyProxyWatchdog] A Context element for ${confluence.context.path}/synchrony-proxy is found in /home/sk/atlassian-confluence-6.5.0/conf/server.xml. No further action is required
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Using CATALINA_BASE: /home/sk/atlassian-confluence-6.5.0
Using CATALINA_HOME: /home/sk/atlassian-confluence-6.5.0
Using CATALINA_TMPDIR: /home/sk/atlassian-confluence-6.5.0/temp
Using JRE_HOME: /usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle
Using CLASSPATH: /home/sk/atlassian-confluence-6.5.0/bin/bootstrap.jar:/home/sk/atlassian-confluence-6.5.0/bin/tomcat-juli.jar
Using CATALINA_PID: /home/sk/atlassian-confluence-6.5.0/work/catalina.pid
Tomcat started.
```


author: Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
body: The log contains at least three attempts to start the service, one of which fails because something (probably confluence) is already running on the port in use.

Could you stop Confluence again with the scripts and then check that it is definitely stopped with "ps -ef \| grep -i java". If that command says anything with confluence in it is still running, then use kill to stop it completely.

Then, go to the logs directories and rename, move or delete the logs (at least catalina.out and atlassian-confluence.log)

Then run the start script \*once\* and give us the log from that if it fails.


author: Dave Theodore [Coyote Creek Consulting]
body: Also, after restarting, do a \`ps -ef\|grep java\` and make sure there are two Java processes running: Confluence and Synchrony. Both should start/stop together when using the Atlassian provided script. You will need to kill both if there are some stray processes running.


author: thesefer
body: Alright, here is the output for ps -ef

```
ps -ef | grep -i java
sk 20352 9323 0 20:15 pts/1 00:00:00 grep --color=auto --exclude-dir=.bzr --exclude-dir=CVS --exclude-dir=.git --exclude-dir=.hg --exclude-dir=.svn -i java
```

Now starting

```
./bin/start-confluence.sh

To run Confluence in the foreground, start the server with start-confluence.sh -fg
executing as current user
If you encounter issues starting up Confluence, please see the Installation guide at http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/DOC/Confluence+Installation+Guide

Server startup logs are located in /home/sk/atlassian-confluence-6.5.0/logs/catalina.out
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Using Java: /usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle/bin/java
2017-11-08 20:17:32,950 INFO [main] [atlassian.confluence.bootstrap.SynchronyProxyWatchdog] A Context element for ${confluence.context.path}/synchrony-proxy is found in /home/sk/atlassian-confluence-6.5.0/conf/server.xml. No further action is required
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Using CATALINA_BASE: /home/sk/atlassian-confluence-6.5.0
Using CATALINA_HOME: /home/sk/atlassian-confluence-6.5.0
Using CATALINA_TMPDIR: /home/sk/atlassian-confluence-6.5.0/temp
Using JRE_HOME: /usr/lib/jvm/java-8-oracle
Using CLASSPATH: /home/sk/atlassian-confluence-6.5.0/bin/bootstrap.jar:/home/sk/atlassian-confluence-6.5.0/bin/tomcat-juli.jar
Using CATALINA_PID: /home/sk/atlassian-confluence-6.5.0/work/catalina.pid
Existing PID file found during start.
Removing/clearing stale PID file.
Tomcat started.?
```

here the crashlog

<https://pastebin.com/p4HaZixY>


author: Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
body: There is something already running on the port you have used for it.

You'll need to identify what is running and blocking the port.

Stop Confluence again, check that it's not running at all with the "ps" command and then run

netstat -plant \| grep 8091

That should tell you what it is.

If, however, it does not return what is listening on port 8091, then there is one other possibility - you've configured Confluence and Synchrony to run on the same port. One of them starting up first will then block the other and cause it to halt.


author: thesefer
body: Nothing is running on that port beside me tunneling that port 'ssh -L' (same without tunneling though)

```
<Server port="8091" shutdown="SHUTDOWN" debug="0">
 <Service name="Tomcat-Standalone">
 <Connector port="8090" connectionTimeout="20000" redirectPort="8443"
 maxThreads="48" minSpareThreads="10"
 enableLookups="false" acceptCount="10" debug="0" URIEncoding="UTF-8"
 protocol="org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11NioProtocol" />

 <Engine name="Standalone" defaultHost="localhost" debug="0">

 <Host name="localhost" debug="0" appBase="webapps" unpackWARs="true" autoDeploy="false" startStopThreads="4">
 <Context path="" docBase="../confluence" debug="0" reloadable="false" useHttpOnly="true">
 <!-- Logger is deprecated in Tomcat 5.5. Logging configuration for Confluence is specified in confluence/WEB-INF/classes/log4j.properties -->
 <Manager pathname="" />
 <Valve className="org.apache.catalina.valves.StuckThreadDetectionValve" threshold="60" />
 </Context>

 <Context path="${confluence.context.path}/synchrony-proxy" docBase="../synchrony-proxy" debug="0" reloadable="false" useHttpOnly="true">
 <Valve className="org.apache.catalina.valves.StuckThreadDetectionValve" threshold="60" />
 </Context>
 </Host>

 </Engine>
```


author: thesefer
body: Gosh I am with stupid (me) ... I totally mistook the controller port for synchrony ... Sorry for wasting your time here!