Stash Windows Service startup fails - Error validating Perl: process timed out

Question

I have just complited deployment of Stash and it worked well on the server in Service mode. Now I've made some changes and after restarting the server I can't get Stash to run - I always get redirected to http://localhost/unavailable page with message:

Error validating Perl: 'An error occurred while executing an external process: process timed out'

When I use start-stash.bat to start the server everything runs - eventually - I do need to wait about 40 seconds for startup to complete. The longest wait is when Starting Servlet Engine: Apache Tomcat/7.0.40 executes - it takes about 95% of the time.

I understand it may be the server problem (it's not top of the line) - but can I somehow tell service - do not timeout, just wait on server to complete initalization?

nikobel · Answer

Thanks for your suggestions - however the problem here is just STARTING the service. If service starts - everything runs as expected. As I said, the server is not the fastest one, but still I presume it shouldn't take 40+ seconds to execute that startup of Tomcat/Catalina.

I've now switched from running the service as LocalSystem to user specially created to run the service - and Stash now starts normally (and quite faster actually). So, I guess it's some issue with running it with Administrative privilages. Guess, I shoud've listen to documentation and did this in the first place (rather than installing hotfix for solving issues with push)

cofarrell · Answer

Hi nikobel,

In addition to Thomas' answer, you can disable the Perl check as well:

https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/STASHKB/Stash+Upgrade+Fails+with+%27Permission+Denied%27+Error

Please keep in mind that there's a (very small) chance that Perl is actually misconfigured. My advice is if you do disable the check then you should validate that branch permissions continue to function (once will be fine). We're looking into making this validation more robust in future.

If you have any more problems don't hesitate to raise a support ticket.

Cheers,

Charles

ThomasA · Answer

Hi nikobel,

I would suggest attempting to solve the underlying problem rather than removing a symptom. I am wondering if there is a difference in the environment running locally vs. running a service. We have seen issues where running as an admin user on Windows can cause slow downs.

That being said there is a property for changing the process time out.

Regards,

Tom.