Jira Service (software) not restarting automatically after server restarts for weekly restart

[ORT JIRA ADMIN]

Hi, does anyone know how to fix Jira Service to restart automatically when we restart our server for our weekly patch/update restart (once a week)? For some reason, when we have our servers restart automatically, the Jira Service is not automatically restarting after the reboot - any ideas? Please advise.

[Earl McCutcheon · Accepted solution]

Hello @ORT JIRA ADMIN ,

I read through the thread, and with everything that you have noted and the things that @Dirk Ronsmans already mentioned, I am leaning towards an Antivirus tool is the most likely the culprit here,  and it is attempting to scan the temporary directories Jira creates during Jira startup operation and in effect is locking out Jira from accessing the needed files during the startup.

Check out the following knowledge base guide that includes the details on what to check for antivirus conflicts, but the KB also includes a few other items to check for possible conflict points:

• Troubleshoot a Jira Server startup failed error 

Regards,
Earl

[ORT JIRA ADMIN]

Hi Earl, thanks for the response; we are looking into that article for every proposed solution; I had a question regarding the section of the article of AV being the culprit as the issue/resolution:

Does JIRA Service need the other two services (JIRA INSTALLATION DIRECTORY and JIRA HOME DIRECTORY ) to be started first? If that's the case, would adding them as a dependency fix the problem?

[Dirk Ronsmans]

Hi @ORT JIRA ADMIN ,

Those aren't services they are the folders on disk where the files of the application and the configuration are.

So those folders need to be available and not locked (by an antivirus or something else) for Jira to be able to start properly

[ORT JIRA ADMIN]

Hi Dirk/Earl, just following up on this case, how can I locate the specific location of the Jira Installation Directory and the Jira Home Directory as mentioned previously? The closest I am able to find is as follows:

We also upgraded our RAM since we noticed that our server was at its max so we thought that might have resolved the issue, but after we rebooted it again after upgrading the RAM, we still noticed that Jira did not start properly.

Please advise and let me know your thoughts on this

[ORT JIRA ADMIN]

Can someone please answer this question for me:

In order for Jira Software service to work after its weekly patch reboot, does Atlassian JIRA need the other two services below (Atlassian BitBucket Elasticsearch Windows Service and Atlassian BitBucket) to start first in order for Atlassian JIRA 8.5.8 to work?

Please advise as soon as possible, its been over weeks now and still no answer for root cause...

[Dirk Ronsmans]

Hi @ORT JIRA ADMIN ,

Those do not need to be started first as they are separate application. There might be links between them but they are not dependent on eachother.

Since we (the community of volunteers) are unable to troubleshoot any further I suggest you open a ticket with the Atlassian Engineers at https://support.atlassian.com/contact

[ORT JIRA ADMIN]

thanks @Dirk Ronsmans , i believe Earl is an Atlassian Engineer; @Earl McCutcheon can you please respond and advise on next step?

[Dirk Ronsmans]

Indeed (or at least some form of it :)) but having a proper ticket that you can have follow up on might be a better strategy.

Hope you can get this sorted!

[Andy Heinzer]

Hi,

The $JIRAHOME/ and $JIRAINSTALL/ directories could be in different locations depending upon where they were configured on setup.  However for most Windows installations, these tend to be in a path such as:

C:\Program Files\Atlassian\Application Data\Jira\

and

C:\Program Files\Atlassian\Jira\

There are more details about our recommendations around anti-virus over in Configure Anti-virus software for use with Jira server.

On a side note, I noticed that in one of your screenshots you appear to have a service there for SQL (called MSSQLSERVER).  If Jira is using that as the SQL database, then this service will act like a dependency for Jira to be able to startup correctly.  Jira requires that when it starts up, that it can have immediate and unfettered access to that SQL database so that it can store/retrieve such data. It appears though that MS SQL service is also set on a delayed automatic start in your screenshot.

This could be the source of your problem here where Jira does not startup correctly upon a system reboot.  If SQL is still in the process of starting when Jira starts (ie not in the status of Running yet), it's very likely Jira is failing to start up because it cannot access the SQL database it is configured to use.  If this is the database server that Jira is using, try adjusting the MSSQLSERVER service to start up as "Automatic" instead of "Delayed Automatic".  That service has to be up and running before Jira can be expected to work.  Leaving the Atlassian Jira service setup to be on a delayed automatic start could then allow the Jira Service to start up successfully after a reboot of the operating system.

Let me know if that helps.

Andy

[ORT JIRA ADMIN]

Hi Andy, that was it; thank you so much for your help and insight!

[Dirk Ronsmans]

Hi @ORT JIRA ADMIN ,

Is this a Windows or Linux machine?

For windows you should just be able to run the JIRA application as a Service and set that to start Automatic (preferably with delayed start)

[ORT JIRA ADMIN]

Hi Dirk, it is a Windows and yes I confirmed from our end that it is indeed setup as Automatic Delayed Start; any other idea as to why it is not working after a restart?

[Dirk Ronsmans]

hmm, does the service not start at all or does it go in to ‘running’ but then fails so you have to restart it ?

if the service start but it doesn’t start completely we would need to look in the logs why it is failing to start. 
You should have the atlassian-jira.log and that should give you/us a clue..

[ORT JIRA ADMIN]

Thanks Dirk, we will look into that - i presume that we would look into Event Viewer logs to access and view the atlassian-jira.log? Or would it be located somewhere else?

[Dirk Ronsmans]

Event viewer might give you some information if the system fails to lock the folder or something else windows related. 

the log I’m talking about would be in your jira home folder. 
by default that is in your c:\program files\Atlasssian\ and then you need to look for the log folder. 

[ORT JIRA ADMIN]

HI Dirk, it looks like per the logs, I was able to find out that the Startup check failed and I believe it locks our Jira Service and then begins to fail to load until we manually restart it again. If you see below in the pics, you can see when we have our servers auto restart at 2:53am it fails but then we manually restarted them at 11:29AM today - any idea on how to fix this approach as to why it locks out?

[Dirk Ronsmans]

Well yes and no, it actually locks your JIRA because the startup check failed. 
Do you maybe have more details higher in the log file?

I wonder if you restart the server, do you shutdown JIRA cleanly first or just kill the machine dragging JIRA down with it. (So maybe it wasn’t closed cleanly and now fails because of it) If you could get the log from just before the restart up to that error I hope something is in there. 

If not, opening a ticket with Atlassian might be a good call (with the support.zip) so the engineer can dive deeper in the logs. 

[ORT JIRA ADMIN]

Here is a few more screenshots, I hope they help? How can I open a ticket with Atlassian Engineer?

I believe we just kill the machine dragging Jira with it since we run an automatic task scheduler at a time frame early in the AM.

[Dirk Ronsmans]

Hi @ORT JIRA ADMIN ,

The new screenshot only confirm that something is breaking at startup causing the service to abort.

Without full access to the log(s) it's tricky to troubleshoot so I'll have to forward you to Atlassian.

You can create a support ticket at https://support.atlassian.com/contact

There you can enter you SEN-number (which can be found in JIRA under licenses and versions) and they will most likely request a support.zip (which bundles all the needed logs in a neat package)

https://confluence.atlassian.com/support/create-a-support-zip-790796819.html

With that information they should be able to quickly pinpoint why it is failing to start.

If you can link back the information when they discover what is wrong I'd be very curious to know what is going on.