bamboo will not start as a service
Asked by Gus Minor:

Tried to follow all of the tips in the knowledge base and it will not run as a service. I get service error code -1

Can you help?

So far my experience installing Atlassian software has been nothing but problematic. I have fought with Jira, Confluence, BitBucket and now Bamboo to get things running. There must be a more simple way to install these packages and setup the database for them to speed up installation and configuration.


Answers:
author: Jeyanthan I
body: Hi Gus,

Could you please share the KB article you followed? We are also interested in the error message/screenshot you get when you try to start as a service.

Were you able to start Bamboo via *\<bamboo-install\>/bin/start-bamboo.bat*?
> So far my experience installing Atlassian software has been nothing but problematic.

I'm sorry to hear that. If you are evaluating Bamboo still, we can triage this together. Please reach out to us here with your SEN - support.atlassian.com.

Cheers,  
Jey

comments: author: Gus Minor
body: Here are the things I tried to follow. My SEN as submitted in the ticket is SEN-13415218

<https://confluence.atlassian.com/bamkb/running-bamboo-as-a-windows-service-troubleshooting-guide-420973231.html>

<https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Bamboo-questions/Can-t-start-Bamboo-as-a-Windows-service/qaq-p/33218>

<https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Bamboo-questions/Bamboo-service-does-not-start-error-code-1/qaq-p/647545>

I can run it if I manually start the BambooConsole.bat but that is the only way it will run.

When I try to install the service then run it I get the following.

![Capture.PNG](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/47179iB2493BACACAD4544/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Capture.PNG")


author: Gus Minor
body: I found the issue and was able to get it going. I had to update some lines in the service.bat file to make sure it refers to the proper Java JDK. I found this via a third party suggestion.

I still believe Atlassian has some major work to do. The installation of the products are not simple. The connected to MS SQL databases only work on some. Was never able to get it to work for BitBucket and Bamboo. The databases are properly set and I can read/write to them at will. The setup will NOT connect to the databases no matter what I try.

The last update to Jira 8.0 and Confluence 6.14 and BitBucket 6.4 completely destroyed my environment. I had to backup the data. Uninstalled everything. Reinstall everything and restore the data.

I really do enjoy the Atlassian suite of tools. However I run it daily with hope that I do not need to update or add new settings. Everything I have downloaded so far has been a tough installation and configuration for no reason. Most of the steps that are recommended for pre-installation and installation should be automated in the installer. I don't understand why it is so manual and temperamental overall to install and configure.

Again I enjoy using the tools. Hopefully the experience of installation and configuration can be improved.


author: John Toth
body: I am having the exact same issue, but can't figure it out. And the previous poster apparently figured out what to do but didn't call out specifics of what to do to get it to work.

Get frustrated with a lot of postings on Atlassian Community as people magically seem to figure out their problem, but never post the solution for the rest of us. SO it is making searching for these problems useless because I never find actual answers.