'ERROR Could not instantiate appender named confluencelog' on Startup
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
Symptoms
On startup, the following appears in the atlassian-confluence.log:
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Parent Classloader: org.apache.catalina.loader.StandardClassLoader@df1832].
log4j:ERROR Could not instantiate appender named "confluencelog".
log4j:ERROR A "com.atlassian.confluence.logging.ConfluenceHomeLogAppender" object is not assignable to a "org.apache.log4j.Appender" variable.
log4j:ERROR The class "org.apache.log4j.Appender" was loaded by
log4j:ERROR [com.atlassian.plugin.classloader.PluginClassLoader@6044d5] whereas object of type
log4j:ERROR "com.atlassian.confluence.logging.ConfluenceHomeLogAppender" was loaded by [WebappClassLoader
delegate: false
repositories: /WEB-INF/classes/
The error does not cause any visible effect in Confluence performance or operation.
Cause
The error can be caused by a plugin that tries to assign a com.atlassian.confluence.logging.ConfluenceHomeLogAppender object to the org.apache.log4j.Appender.
Resolution
Ensure that all plugins are up to date:
Using the Universal Plugin Manager, identify outdated plugins.
Prior to the Universal Plugin Manager, it may be necessary to uninstall old plugins one by one to determine which plugin is responsible. You can track old plugins from the database by their last modification date:
1select plugindataid, pluginkey, filename, lastmoddate from plugindata ORDER BY lastmoddate;Remove the outdated plugin. This may be done directly from
Administration >> Plugins. If that does not work, refer to How to manually remove malfunctioning apps (plugins) from Confluence Data Center.
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