JIRA upgraded successfully but unable to start

[CST JIRA Confluence Admin]

We performed JIRA upgrade from 7.5.0 to latest version 7.13.0 using AdoptOpenJDK. Upgrade went well and we were also able to start JIRA initially. After upgrade we checked JDK path and made sure it is using AdoptOpenJDK. After successful upgrade, we upgraded user-installed JIRA plugins to work with upgraded JIRA version - 7.13.0.

And simultaneously we started JIRA indexing. But after JIRA was indexed, JIRA is not starting and giving error - System plugins failed to start, with the list of plugins which were not started.

PFB the system configurations where JIRA server is running:

OS - Windows

Installation directory - 3.23 GB free of 49.8 GB

C drive - 2.05 GB free of 69.7 GB

RAM - 8 GB

JVM maximum and minimum memory set to 4 GB & 1 GB respectively.

After JIRA startup error was seen, reduced JVM maximum memory to 2 GB and minimum to 1024 MB but still startup giving error.

After JIRA was giving startup error, we tried to downgrade back to its original version - 7.5.0 but still giving the same issue.

Requesting you to kindly help on above issue at the earliest please.

Any help is appreciable.

Thanks.

[CST JIRA Confluence Admin · Accepted solution]

Hi all,
Thank you for your responses. We resolved the issue as we were having backup for our JIRA data. We installed JIRA 7.0.4 in our test server, restored the backup we had and then performed JIRA upgrade to version 7.13.0
Thanks.

[Earl McCutcheon]

Hello,

Thanks for the details, and first I wanted to confirm you are using Java version 8 with the hotspot JVM not version 11 or 8 with OpenJ9, Verify you are using the AdoptOpenJDK 8 (HotSpot) as openJDK 11 is not compatible yet.  More Details on this  here, and here

Then check out this next KB article on startup failed errors, for a list of items that can cause this: "Troubleshooting JIRA Startup Failed Error".  You have already bumped up the memory which is a large contributer to this error and if the Java checks out as noted above move on to the Section to check for "Plugins disabled in database"  for the next most likely culprit from what you have described.

If this is not the issue I would suggest moving to manually clearing out the plugin cache as the next point, to force a rebuild in the caches via the following process, and then the rest of the possible causes on the  KB if none of the noted items are the case:

• Stop Jira
• Remove the ".bundled-plugins" and ".osgi-plugins" manually located in the "<JIRA Home>/plugins" directory (These are hidden by default):

$jira-home/plugins/.bundled-plugins
$jira-home/plugins/.osgi-plugins

• Delete the contents of the work directory (!) Only remove the contents, do not remove the directory itself, or the path will not rebuild correctly:

$jira-install/work/*

• Restart your JIRA instance

Regards,
Earl

[CST JIRA Confluence Admin]

Thank you Earl for your prompt response.

We tried all above mentioned as follows:

1. Stopped JIRA

2. Removed all contents in $jira-install/work by deleting the folder and creating a new one.

3. Removed $jira-home/plugins/.bundled-plugins & $jira-home/plugins/.osgi-plugins folders manually

4. Restarted JIRA.

But still was facing the same issue which is given below:

System plugins failed to start: We haven't been able to start all the required system plugins

We couldn't start the following plugins:

1. Gadget Directory Plugin (com.atlassian.gadgets.directory)

2. Atlassian Jira - Plugins - Gadgets Plugin (com.atlassian.jira.gadgets)

3. Atlassian Jira - Plugins - Global Issue Navigator (com.atlassian.jira.jira-issue-nav-plugin)

4. Atlassian JIRA - Plugins - Quick Edit Plugin (com.atlassian.jira.jira-quick-edit-plugin)

5. Atlassian Jira - Plugins - REST Plugin (com.atlassian.jira.rest)

All 5 above mentioned plugins when checked in our installed-plugins folder, these were not existing and we tried to download from marketplace but no success.

So what we did is we checked in JIRA database under table "pluginstate" and we updated pluginenabled to true for all above plugins. For 1st plugin listed above, since it was not available in the table, we inserted record ('com.atlassian.gadgets.directory', 'true') and again restarted JIRA but still facing the same issue.

Then we are having another JIRA server which is working fine. So we copied the plugins directory from working JIRA server (7.0.4) to this server (7.13.0) which is causing above issues and tried restarting JIRA but still facing the same issue.

Kindly help at the earliest please.

Thanks.

[Earl McCutcheon]

Hello,

Thanks for the info and the Plugins noted are bundled system plugins and are not stored in the installed-plugins directory under your jira home but rather the Jira install directory at "$Jira-Install/atlassian-jira/WEB-INF/atlassian-bundled-plugins", and loaded from the various .jar packages. Check the permissions to verify the directory permissions allow read write and execute

Also under the "pluginstate" table the plugin keys listed as "true" or "false" under pluginenabled column should only reflect a plugin that is flagged expressly true or false where it would otherwise not show up in the list if flagged as intended.  So 'com.atlassian.gadgets.directory' should not be present in the table if correctly flagged, I would recommend checking the startup logging in your atlassian-jira.log under the sections "User Plugins" and System Plugins" search for the plugin key to verify its status for startup, exe for the gadget directory it would look like this when enabled (Versions may be different):

Gadget Directory Plugin : com.atlassian.gadgets.directory
Version : 4.3.9
Status : enabled
Vendor : Atlassian
Description : Plugin which renders a directory of gadgets

But at this point we would want to take a closer look at the system logging and we need to get you in contact with The Support team at https://support.atlassian.com  so we can get a Support Zip from you via the secure channel and take a closer look at the specifics of this case so we can narrow this down a bit more. 

I am creating a Support Request on your behalf with the details now, and you should receive a notification in a Moment, on how to access the request, Let me know if you do not receive it.

Regards,
Earl

[Khizer Saleem Malik]

facing the same issue however, we are attempting an upgrade from 7.10.1 to 8.13.1, were you able to find a resolution to the issue