Jira had problems starting up

[M.H.Hoekstra]

I know others have asked the same question, but I guess I don't speak the language necessary to understand the answers. When I start Jira, I get the following message:

Jira encountered the following problems during startup. You need to fix any errors before you start Jira again.

Database: JIRA couldn't connect to your database

JIRA failed to establish a connection to your database.
This could be because:

• Your database isn't running
• The configuration of your dbconfig.xml file is incorrect (user, password, or database URL etc.)
• There is a network issue between JIRA and your database (e.g. firewall, database doesn't allow remote access etc.)

There are several other solutions you can try, review our documentation and see what works for you.

Some details:

• I run Jira on my PC, not in the cloud.
• I'm the only user.
• A while back it was working fine, I didn't change anything
• I don't know how to reach dbconfig or how to 'ping' something
• I'm on the same network

Any help would be much appreciated!

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

First, you need to know what database you set it up with.  Did you select the "internal database, not suitable for production"?  Or have you installed a (supported) database server for it somewhere?

You are going to need to understand the dbconfig if you cannot answer the question above - go to <Jira home directory> and look for the dbconfig.xml file, open it with a plain text editor and read the database connection line - it will name the type of database driver as part of it.  Some are obvious, but if unsure, just let us know what you have and we can work it out.

The second thing to do is read the application logs under <Jira home directory>/logs - they will probably give you a bit more about what is wrong with the connection.

[M.H.Hoekstra]

Hi Nic, thank you for your answer! I found the dbconfig file and opened it. It says:

  <database-type>h2</database-type>

Is this what you mean?

I'm reading the log-file, but there is so much information....

[M.H.Hoekstra]

Is this something to work on:

2019-06-03 07:00:52,875 JIRA-Bootstrap INFO [c.a.j.config.database.SystemDatabaseConfigurationLoader] Reading database configuration from C:\Program Files\Atlassian\Application Data\JIRA\dbconfig.xml
2019-06-03 07:00:53,279 JIRA-Bootstrap WARN [c.a.jira.health.HealthChecks] Your memory allocation pool settings need attention
2019-06-03 07:00:53,279 JIRA-Bootstrap WARN [c.a.jira.health.HealthChecks] JIRA runs in a Java virtual machine (JVM), and this JVM is allocated an amount of memory to enable JIRA to run. These amounts can be manually configured.
- The initial memory allocation pool (-Xms) is recommended to be at least 384m.

2019-06-03 07:00:57,926 JIRA-Bootstrap ERROR [c.a.config.bootstrap.DefaultAtlassianBootstrapManager] Could not successfully test your database:
org.h2.jdbc.JdbcSQLException: General error: "java.lang.IllegalStateException: The transaction log might be corrupt for key 1335038 [1.4.185/100]" [50000-185]

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Ok, you have two problems here.

At some point, you have changed the memory settings for Jira, and it looks like you have set it too low.  You will need to change the settings in <Jira install>/bin/setenv.bat to correct this, but possibly also alter the service settings if you're running it as a service.

The second problem is that you are using the internal database, which is not really suitable for anything past a bit of testing - it does not scale well, and fails catastrophically without warning.  It looks like this has happened to you.  It may not be recoverable. 

If it is not, or rescuing it is complex, then look in <Jira home>/exports to see if the automatic backup has generated regular xml backups.  Save all of these immediately, as you should be able to rebuild a new Jira from the last valid one.

[M.H.Hoekstra]

Thank you once again for your elaborate explanation. I will try your suggestions. Luckily the exports are there and I copied them so they are safe. I'm surprised to hear that my setup is not suitable for anything past testing, I thought it was ok to use as individual non-business person on local pc. I will post a final reply once I figured things out.

Thank you once again, you have been of great help!

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I think there should be a big red box in the docs saying that h2 is only suitable for demo and test type actions.  It is there in the install guides, but there's no highlighting.  It does briefly warn you during setup, and if you log in as an admin, it will give you a "database healthcheck failure", assuming you're on a recent version.  But most of us do manage to ignore all of those!  I recently had a client who were having some issues and I didn't spot it until day 3, and I really should know better!

[Harish Kallem]

Hi Nic,

I'm getting this issue after migrating to JIRA 8.1.0,

Database: JIRA couldn't connect to your database

JIRA failed to establish a connection to your database.
This could be because:

• Your database isn't running
• The configuration of your dbconfig.xml file is incorrect (user, password, or database URL etc.)
• There is a network issue between JIRA and your database (e.g. firewall, database doesn't allow remote access etc.)

I have upgraded the SQL from 2008 R2 to 2012 also.

Can anyone help me with this.