Confluence always redirects me to the login page with a captcha when accessing from server

[Jake Jollimore]

I've just installed Confluence on a new dev't server, which currently isn't open for outside access. As such, I'm only able to access confluence from the server using localhost:8090. 

Everything was working fine until I imported the backup from our existing Confluence instance, and now I can't log in. Every time I try, I'm presented with the login page and a captcha. I'm certain that my credentials are correct, and that I'm entering the captcha properly, but I'm always redirected to the login page. 

We have this same issue on our production server (I can access from the web using our URL, but not from the server using localhost), so I'm assuming there's some setting that was migrated with the backup. 

I've tried restarting the service, clearing my cache, restarting my system and browser, etc. all to no avail. 

This new Confluence instance is v7.4.4 and our existing production instance is v6.9.0. As I've said, the issue exists on both.

I've seen other threads that talk about modifying the server.xml file, but none of those seem to pertain to me. However, here's what my server.xml file looks like, just in case it helps:

<Server port="8000" shutdown="SHUTDOWN" debug="0">
<Service name="Tomcat-Standalone">
<!--
==============================================================================================================
DEFAULT - Direct connector with no proxy, for unproxied HTTP access to Confluence.

If using a http/https proxy, comment out this connector.
==============================================================================================================
-->
<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"/>
<!--
==============================================================================================================
HTTP - Proxying Confluence via Apache or Nginx over HTTP

If you're proxying traffic to Confluence over HTTP, uncomment the connector below and comment out the others.
Make sure you provide the right information for proxyName and proxyPort.

For more information see:
Apache - https://confluence.atlassian.com/x/4xQLM
nginx - https://confluence.atlassian.com/x/TgSvEg

==============================================================================================================
-->

<!--
<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"
scheme="http" proxyName="<subdomain>.<domain>.com" proxyPort="80"/>
-->

<!--
==============================================================================================================
HTTPS - Direct connector with no proxy, for unproxied HTTPS access to Confluence.

For more info see https://confluence.atlassian.com/x/s3UC
==============================================================================================================
-->

<!--
<Connector port="8443" maxHttpHeaderSize="8192"
maxThreads="150" minSpareThreads="25"
protocol="org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11Nio2Protocol"
enableLookups="false" disableUploadTimeout="true"
acceptCount="100" scheme="https" secure="true"
clientAuth="false" sslProtocol="TLSv1.2" sslEnabledProtocols="TLSv1.2" SSLEnabled="true"
URIEncoding="UTF-8" keystorePass="<MY_CERTIFICATE_PASSWORD>"/>
-->

<!--
==============================================================================================================
HTTPS - Proxying Confluence via Apache or Nginx over HTTPS

If you're proxying traffic to Confluence over HTTPS, uncomment the connector below and comment out the others.
Make sure you provide the right information for proxyName and proxyPort.

For more information see:
Apache - https://confluence.atlassian.com/x/PTT3MQ
nginx - https://confluence.atlassian.com/x/cNIvMw
==============================================================================================================
-->

<!--
<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"
scheme="https" secure="true" proxyName="<subdomain>.<domain>.com" proxyPort="443"/>
-->

<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">
<!-- 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>
</Service>
</Server>