How to solve issue of "$CATALINA_PID was set but the specified file does not exist"

[Greg Elofson]

I installed jira 7.13.1 following these steps for a manual installation, without doing anything custom:

https://confluence.atlassian.com/adminjiraserver0710/installing-jira-applications-on-linux-from-archive-file-953144209.html

to locate the home directory:

<installation-directory>\atlassian-jira\WEB-INF\classes\jira-application.properties

jira.home=/var/jirasoftware-home

Operating system is Centos 7

On a separate server (GCP), I've built a Postgresql DB but have not yet connected it to jira--waiting until this first issue is solved before proceeding.

For java, I have:

$ java -version

java version "1.8.0_202"

Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_202-b08)

Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.202-b08, mixed mode)

After starting jira with ./start-jira.sh -fg, nothing renders at localhost:8080

However, upon quitting, the following message is posted as part of the log:

$CATALINA_PID was set but the specified file does not exist. Is Tomcat running? Stop aborted.

FYI: here's the entire stream:

Server startup logs are located in /opt/jirasoftware/atlassian-jira-software-7.13.1-standalone/logs/catalina.out

Using CATALINA_BASE: /opt/jirasoftware/atlassian-jira-software-7.13.1-standalone

Using CATALINA_HOME: /opt/jirasoftware/atlassian-jira-software-7.13.1-standalone

Using CATALINA_TMPDIR: /opt/jirasoftware/atlassian-jira-software-7.13.1-standalone/temp

Using JRE_HOME: /usr/java/jre1.8.0_202-amd64

Using CLASSPATH: /opt/jirasoftware/atlassian-jira-software-7.13.1-standalone/bin/bootstrap.jar:/opt/jirasoftware/atlassian-jira-software-7.13.1-standalone/bin/tomcat-juli.jar

Using CATALINA_PID: /opt/jirasoftware/atlassian-jira-software-7.13.1-standalone/work/catalina.pid$CATALINA_PID was set but the specified file does not exist. Is Tomcat running? Stop aborted.

So, assuming that the reason that jira cannot render to localhost:8080 is related to the fact that "the specified file does not exist", does anyone have a suggestion about how to proceed??

[Earl McCutcheon · Accepted solution]

Hi Greg,

The main thing I am looking at in that message is the "specified file does not exist" portion, indicating there is an issue with permissions or ownership, possibly missing a "su -u <jira_user_name>" before running the startup script to launch with the dedicated jira user account on one of the startups and causing the conflict by changing permissions in the file paths.

I would recommend stoping jira and update owner and permissions of jira home and install directories recursively as covered in "How to fix JIRA Directories permission in Linux" and Let me know if this does the trick post restart.

And in the long run I would recommend using the installer to launch the services as covered our documentation "Installing Jira applications on Linux" it's recommended to run the installer using sudo as this will create a dedicated account to run Jira and allows you to run Jira as service as the OS starts rather than manually starting the services using the startup script to avoide permission conflicts that can occur on manual startup.

Regards,
Earl

[Greg Elofson]

Thanks Earl, 

That was the issue. Forgetting to su - into the service account that time created the mess.

Again...thanks

As an aside, I generally avoid running jira as a service because there are times i need to change the config files and bring down the app instead of the entire server--so i still need to restart using ./start-jira.sh (plus what i can surmise, using the installer creates a "third" directory, of sorts, apart from the home and installation directory (or so i seemed when i used the installer).