Unable to Start Upgraded Confluence After Adding Jespa NTLM Authenticator Files

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

After upgrading Confluence, adding Jespa NTLM Authenticator .jar files (jcifs-x.x.xx.jar and jespa-x.x.xx.jar) to the Confluence installation directory prevents Confluence from starting.

The following appears in the atlassian-confluence.log:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10   2014-02-25 10:20:15,616 INFO [main] [com.atlassian.confluence.lifecycle] contextInitialized Starting Confluence 5.4.2 [build 4731 based on commit hash 0a2d13ba65b62df25186f4b87e6c642af1792689] 2014-02-25 10:20:18,258 INFO [main] [springframework.web.context.ContextLoader] initWebApplicationContext Root WebApplicationContext: initialization started 2014-02-25 10:20:20,908 ERROR [main] [springframework.web.context.ContextLoader] initWebApplicationContext Context initialization failed org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanCreationException: Error creating bean with name 'managerTransactionProxyCreator' defined in class path resource [applicationContext.xml]: Initialization of bean failed; nested exception is org.springframework.beans.factory.BeanDefinitionStoreException: Invalid bean name 'javaSimonMonitoringInterceptor' in bean reference for bean property 'interceptorNames' with key [0] at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.doCreateBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:480) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory$1.run(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:409) at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.createBean(AbstractAutowireCapableBeanFactory.java:380) at org.springframework.beans.factory.support.AbstractBeanFactory$1.getObject(AbstractBeanFactory.java:264)

Cause

The following custom authenticator is used in seraph-config.xml: <authenticator class="org.techtime.confluence.authenticators.JespaAuthenticator"/>

Resolution

  • Use the supported custom authenticator in seraph-config.xml:<authenticator class="com.pixelpark.seraph.SSOAuthenticator" />

  • Remove techtime-confluence-ntlm-x.x-prod.jar file from the <Confluence-Installation>/lib or <Confluence-Installation>/confluence/WEB-INF/lib directory (if present)

Updated on April 8, 2025

Still need help?

The Atlassian Community is here for you.