JIRA Fails to Start Due to 'Class org.apache.commons.logging.impl.SLF4JLogFactory does not implement org.apache.commons.logging.LogFactory'
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
Symptom
When booting JIRA, Tomcat fails to startup by throwing the below error in catalina.out.
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SEVERE: Error configuring application listener of class com.atlassian.jira.soap.axis.JiraAxisHttpListener
java.lang.ExceptionInInitializerError
at org.apache.axis.transport.http.AxisHTTPSessionListener.<clinit>(AxisHTTPSessionListener.java:33)
at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.java:39)
...
Caused by: org.apache.commons.discovery.DiscoveryException: Class org.apache.commons.logging.impl.SLF4JLogFactory does not implement org.apache.commons.logging.LogFactory
at org.apache.commons.discovery.tools.ClassUtils.verifyAncestory(ClassUtils.java:180)
at org.apache.commons.discovery.tools.SPInterface.verifyAncestory(SPInterface.java:201)
...
Cause
Since v4.1.1, JIRA depends on the logging library of <JIRA_Installation_Home>/lib/jcl-over-slf4j*.jar, but there is another logging library (i.e. commons-logging*.jar) that causes a version conflict.
Resolution
Check for the commons-logging-*.jar under
<JIRA_Installation_Home>/atlassian-jira/WEB-INF/lib. If it's there, remove it.Check if there are any 'Version 2' plugins installed in the
<JIRA_Installation_Home>/atlassian-jira/WEB-INF/libdirectory. If there are, move them to<jira-home>/installed-plugins.ℹ️ To find out whether a plugin is Version 1 or Version 2, check the Plugin Exchange. Note that plugins have different versions, and older builds of plugins may be Version 1.
Restart JIRA.
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