Confluence does not start with "Unable to load server configuration from..." error in catalina.out
Platform Notice: Data Center Only - This article only applies to Atlassian products 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
Summary
Confluence is failing to boot. catalina.out log file indicates that tomcat configuration cannot be loaded:
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WARNING [main] org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.parseServerXml Unable to load server configuration from [/path/to/confluence/atlassian-confluence-install/conf/server.xml]
org.xml.sax.SAXParseException; systemId: file:/path/to/confluence/atlassian-confluence-install/conf/server.xml; lineNumber: 92; columnNumber: 31; Error at line [92] column [31]: [null]
at org.apache.tomcat.util.digester.Digester.createSAXException(Digester.java:1982)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.digester.Digester.createSAXException(Digester.java:2014)
at org.apache.tomcat.util.digester.Digester.endElement(Digester.java:1066)
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
at org.apache.catalina.util.ContextName.<init>(ContextName.java:52)
~~~~~~~~~~~~
SEVERE [main] org.apache.catalina.startup.Catalina.start Cannot start server, server instance is not configuredDiagnosis
Attempt to start Confluence
Open
<confluence_install>/log/catalina.outand check last events being loggedIf you observe
Unable to load server configuration fromWARNING, then tomcat is failing to load due to configuration errorWARNING will also indicate which file is misconfigured, in the example error above,
server.xmlis incorrect
Cause
Tomcat needs correctly defined configuration in server.xml and other files in order to boot and load Confluence.
Solution
Go to location in the specified file indicated by line and column values in the error message. Issue might be with incorrect declaration or simply missing character.
You can also use new Confluence installation of the same version for reference for default configuration or content of certain system files.
Example:
Error above indicated failure in Error at line [92] column [31]
Looking at server.xml, we can see that tomcat failed to recognise and load specified context declaration, because it was made incorrectly. Declaration added within its own <Context> ... </Context> tags, as opposed to being added within the existing<Context > ... </Context> tags. Removing or correcting declaration allowed for correct boot.
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