Troubleshooting Tomcat issue when installing JIRA 4.3.4 standalone

[Joe Hakim Rahme]

Hello, I hope this is the right place to ask the question.

I am installing JIRA 4.3.4 (standalone) on a Solaris machine. I'm following this guide: http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/JIRA/Installing+JIRA+Standalone+from+an+Archive+File+on+Windows%2C+Linux+or+Solaris

I have defined my JIRA HOME in the server.xml file.

I use a dedicated user with the appropriate permissions (however it's not named "jira").

When I run the ./bin/start-jira.sh -fg, the Tomcat server fails and here's the error output:

INFO: Starting Servlet Engine: Apache Tomcat/6.0.32
Aug 8, 2011 4:33:07 PM org.apache.tomcat.util.modeler.Registry registerComponent
SEVERE: Null component Catalina:type=JspMonitor,name=jsp,WebModule=//localhost/,J2EEApplication=none,J2EEServer=none
Aug 8, 2011 4:33:07 PM org.apache.tomcat.util.modeler.Registry registerComponent
SEVERE: Null component Catalina:type=JspMonitor,name=calendar.css,WebModule=//localhost/,J2EEApplication=none,J2EEServer=none
Aug 8, 2011 4:33:07 PM org.apache.tomcat.util.modeler.Registry registerComponent
SEVERE: Null component Catalina:type=JspMonitor,name=global.css,WebModule=//localhost/,J2EEApplication=none,J2EEServer=none
java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:585)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.start(Bootstrap.java:289)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.main(Bootstrap.java:414)
Caused by: java.lang.UnsupportedClassVersionError: Bad version number in .class file (unable to load class com.atlassian.jira.web.ServletContextProviderListener)
at org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoader.findClassInternal(WebappClassLoader.java:2822)
at org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoader.findClass(WebappClassLoader.java:1159)
at org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoader.loadClass(WebappClassLoader.java:1647)
at org.apache.catalina.loader.WebappClassLoader.loadClass(WebappClassLoader.java:1526)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.WebAnnotationSet.loadClassAnnotation(WebAnnotationSet.java:145)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.WebAnnotationSet.loadApplicationListenerAnnotations(WebAnnotationSet.java:73)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.WebAnnotationSet.loadApplicationAnnotations(WebAnnotationSet.java:56)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.applicationAnnotationsConfig(ContextConfig.java:297)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.start(ContextConfig.java:1078)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.ContextConfig.lifecycleEvent(ContextConfig.java:261)
at org.apache.catalina.util.LifecycleSupport.fireLifecycleEvent(LifecycleSupport.java:142)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardContext.start(StandardContext.java:4611)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.start(ContainerBase.java:1053)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardHost.start(StandardHost.java:840)
at org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.start(ContainerBase.java:1053)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardEngine.start(StandardEngine.java:463)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardService.start(StandardService.java:525)
at org.apache.catalina.core.StandardServer.start(StandardServer.java:754)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.start(Catalina.java:595)
... 6 more

Your help is much appreciated. Thanks.

[twong_atlassian]

What tar (I'm referring to the binary 'tar' not our tar.gz file) are you using? The tar file was created using GNU tar, and we've had a number of problems with Solaris TAR not unpacking the thing corrrectly.

[J. Caldwell]

I don't believe you should define JAVA_HOME in the server.xml. You should define it in the .profile of the user and/or the setenv.sh script. It won't be read and persist in the server.xml. It is probably picking up a wrong/older version of java unless the variable is set properly.

As the user, you should run a java -version and see what it says. Back in the day, java used to come preinstalled with Solaris, and depending on what version you are using, you could just be pointed at that old version.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Actually, Joe said JIRA home, not JAVA. But yes, that's the right thing to do with JAVA_HOME, and your point about Solaris picking up odd versions is definitely the next thing to check!

However, I've just noticed Joe said he put JIRA_HOME into server.xml - that's not right - it needs to be in jira-application.properties, and the profile of the user.

[J. Caldwell]

Nic,

You are right. Sorry...I mis-read. Brain has been fried due to a Confluence upgrade. :)

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

You might want to try Java 1.6 - it's not supported below 1.6

That doesn't mean that it won't work, just that if you do have a problem, Atlassian won't feel obliged to help you and their first suggestion will be to try 1.6 and see if you get the same message!

See http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/JIRA043/Supported+Platforms

[JamieA]

It sounds like you have an old version of java. You need java 1.6 (java 6) or above to run jira.

[Joe Hakim Rahme]

Unfortunately I am running Java 1.5.0_15. So that's not it.

[JamieA]

My bad, I meant 1.6. Answer updated.