Jira won't start. The error page suggests it is a permissions problem, but all permissions are corrc

Question

I have a jira test server to make sure updates go smoothly. I've used it a number of times with no problem. I tried to start it again to test the latest upgrade and got the message:

Jira had problems starting up

With the message "Ensure JIRA has permission to create and write to the jira.home directory /var/atlassian/application-data/jira."

I'm running this on Centos 7. All permissions are set correctly. I have SELinux set to disabled. Could this possibly be something to do with Centos? Did they push out a security patch that might be causing this?

The application can't write to /var/atlassian/aplication-data/jira/log but this is the relevant information from catalina.out

localhost-startStop-1 INFO [c.a.jira.startup.JiraHomeStartupCheck] Configured jira.home '/var/atlassian/application-data/jira' does not exist. We will create it.

...

user.country : US
user.dir : /opt/atlassian/jira
user.home : /home/jira1
user.language : en
user.name : jira1
user.timezone : America/Chicago

22-Jul-2020 10:15:08.855 INFO [main] org.apache.coyote.AbstractProtocol.start Starting ProtocolHandler ["http-nio-8080"]
22-Jul-2020 10:15:08.860 INFO [main] org.apache.tomcat.util.net.NioSelectorPool.getSharedSelector Using a shared selector for servlet write/read
22-Jul-2020 10:15:09.207 INFO [main] org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.start Server startup in 7470 ms
2020-07-22 10:15:09,430-0500 JIRA-Bootstrap INFO [c.a.j.config.database.SystemDatabaseConfigurationLoader] Reading database configuration from /var/atlassian/application-data/jira/dbconfig.xml
2020-07-22 10:15:09,571-0500 JIRA-Bootstrap INFO [c.a.j.config.database.SystemDatabaseConfigurationLoader] Reading database configuration from /var/atlassian/application-data/jira/dbconfig.xml
2020-07-22 10:15:09,571-0500 JIRA-Bootstrap INFO [c.a.j.config.database.SystemDatabaseConfigurationLoader] Reading database configuration from /var/atlassian/application-data/jira/dbconfig.xml
2020-07-22 10:15:09,739-0500 JIRA-Bootstrap INFO [c.a.jira.startup.JiraStartupLogger] Running Jira startup checks.
2020-07-22 10:15:09,740-0500 JIRA-Bootstrap FATAL [c.a.jira.startup.JiraStartupLogger] Startup check failed. Jira will be locked.

The owner of /var/atlassian/aplication-data/jira is jira1. It's as if java is just not seeing it.

Thanks,

Chris

Chris Schulte · Answer

Thanks @Mike Rathwell ,

I've been looking for some place that it is pointing to the wrong directory, but cantina.out says it can't find a directory that is obviously there. There might be an issue where, since it is a direct clone of our production system, that the base address is messing it up.

I'll keep looking.

Mike Rathwell · Answer

Hi @Chris Schulte ,

These kinds of things can bite often. Without seeing the whole stream (and it would be rather large) I suspect that somewhere, your new instance installed is pointing at the wrong directory for JIRA_HOME. Part of what makes me think that is how hard it bonks right after trying to ready your DB configuration as well.

Maybe that is the first place to check. Good luck.