Bitbucket Server Fails to Start with the Reference to Entity Delimiter Error
Platform Notice: Data Center Only - This article only applies to Atlassian apps on the Data Center platform.
Note that this KB was created for the Data Center version of the product. Data Center KBs for non-Data-Center-specific features may also work for Server versions of the product, however they have not been tested. Support for Server* products ended on February 15th 2024. If you are running a Server product, you can visit the Atlassian Server end of support announcement to review your migration options.
*Except Fisheye and Crucible
Problem
After making changes to server.xml, Bitbucket Server fails to start. The following is logged in catalina.out:
25-Jun-2015 22:54:18.834 SEVERE [main] org.apache.tomcat.util.digester.Digester.fatalError Parse Fatal Error at line 106 column 44: The reference to entity "ABC123" must end with the ';' delimiter.
org.xml.sax.SAXParseException; systemId: file:/C:/Atlassian/Bitbucket Server/bitbucket-home/shared/server.xml; lineNumber: 106; columnNumber: 44; The reference to entity "ABC123" must end with the ';' delimiter.
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.util.ErrorHandlerWrapper.createSAXParseException(ErrorHandlerWrapper.java:198)
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.util.ErrorHandlerWrapper.fatalError(ErrorHandlerWrapper.java:177)
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLErrorReporter.reportError(XMLErrorReporter.java:441)
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLErrorReporter.reportError(XMLErrorReporter.java:368)
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLScanner.reportFatalError(XMLScanner.java:1436)
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLScanner.scanAttributeValue(XMLScanner.java:890)
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.scanAttribute(XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.java:1546)
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.scanStartElement(XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.java:1318)
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl$FragmentContentDriver.next(XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.java:2770)
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentScannerImpl.next(XMLDocumentScannerImpl.java:606)
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.impl.XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.scanDocument(XMLDocumentFragmentScannerImpl.java:510)
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(XML11Configuration.java:848)
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.XML11Configuration.parse(XML11Configuration.java:777)
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.XMLParser.parse(XMLParser.java:141)
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.parsers.AbstractSAXParser.parse(AbstractSAXParser.java:1213)
at com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.jaxp.SAXParserImpl$JAXPSAXParser.parse(SAXParserImpl.java:649)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.digester.Digester.parse(Digester.java:1457)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.load(Catalina.java:551)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.load(Catalina.java:599)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:57)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:606)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.load(Bootstrap.java:310)
at org.apache.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.main(Bootstrap.java:484)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:57)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:606)
at com.atlassian.bitbucket.internal.catalina.startup.Bootstrap.main(Bootstrap.java:59)Cause
This is caused by a special character being present in server.xml which has not been escaped. This is likely caused by an ampersand (&).
Resolution
Replace the & with & to escape it.
For example:
Test&StringBecomes:
Test&StringWas this helpful?