Jenkins Fails to Start

Question

We have a server running FreeBSD 9.1-p17 and Jenkins. I interact with it via PuTTY. We upgraded from Jenkins 1.458 to 1.570, via FreeBSD's ports collection. Due to this problem with starting, we decided to reinstall.

First we uninstalled Jenkins, then we moved the main Jenkins folder (/usr/local/eweru-dev/jenkins) to a backup location, and reinstalled (again, from the ports collection). When we reinstalled, we kept the user 'jenkins' from the last install.

Now, when we try to start Jenkins, we get an error. The error below is from when we try to start it by navigating to /usr/local/share/jenkins and typing java -jar jenkins.war. When we try to run it as a service (with service jenkins onestart), we get a very similar message.

The exception looks similar to the one from this blog, but I have tried connecting Jenkins to openjdk 7 and 8 to no avail.

Is information from our old Jenkins install finding its way into this one, breaking stuff? Or maybe there's some compatibility issue with FreeBSD 9.1.

Running from: /usr/local/share/jenkins/jenkins.war
webroot: $user.home/.jenkins
Jul 18, 2014 10:53:51 AM winstone.Logger logInternal
INFO: Beginning extraction from war file
Jul 18, 2014 10:53:51 AM org.eclipse.jetty.util.log.JavaUtilLog info
INFO: jetty-8.y.z-SNAPSHOT
Jul 18, 2014 10:53:55 AM org.eclipse.jetty.util.log.JavaUtilLog info
INFO: NO JSP Support for , did not find org.apache.jasper.servlet.JspServlet
Jenkins home directory: /homes/maxerdwien/.jenkins found at: $user.home/.jenkins
Jul 18, 2014 10:53:55 AM hudson.util.BootFailure publish
SEVERE: Failed to initialize Jenkins
hudson.util.AWTProblem: java.lang.NullPointerException
        at hudson.WebAppMain.contextInitialized(WebAppMain.java:182)
        at org.eclipse.jetty.server.handler.ContextHandler.callContextInitialized(ContextHandler.java:782)
        at org.eclipse.jetty.servlet.ServletContextHandler.callContextInitialized(ServletContextHandler.java:424)
        at org.eclipse.jetty.server.handler.ContextHandler.startContext(ContextHandler.java:774)
        at org.eclipse.jetty.servlet.ServletContextHandler.startContext(ServletContextHandler.java:249)
        at org.eclipse.jetty.webapp.WebAppContext.startContext(WebAppContext.java:1242)
        at org.eclipse.jetty.server.handler.ContextHandler.doStart(ContextHandler.java:717)
        at org.eclipse.jetty.webapp.WebAppContext.doStart(WebAppContext.java:494)
        at org.eclipse.jetty.util.component.AbstractLifeCycle.start(AbstractLifeCycle.java:64)
        at org.eclipse.jetty.server.handler.HandlerWrapper.doStart(HandlerWrapper.java:95)
        at org.eclipse.jetty.server.Server.doStart(Server.java:282)
        at org.eclipse.jetty.util.component.AbstractLifeCycle.start(AbstractLifeCycle.java:64)
        at winstone.Launcher.<init>(Launcher.java:154)
        at winstone.Launcher.main(Launcher.java:354)
        at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
        at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:57)
        at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
        at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:606)
        at Main._main(Main.java:293)
        at Main.main(Main.java:98)
Caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException
        at sun.awt.X11FontManager.getDefaultPlatformFont(X11FontManager.java:779)
        at sun.font.SunFontManager$2.run(SunFontManager.java:433)
        at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
        at sun.font.SunFontManager.<init>(SunFontManager.java:376)
        at sun.awt.X11FontManager.<init>(X11FontManager.java:32)
        at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance0(Native Method)
        at sun.reflect.NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.java:57)
        at sun.reflect.DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.newInstance(DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.java:45)
        at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Constructor.java:526)
        at java.lang.Class.newInstance(Class.java:374)
        at sun.font.FontManagerFactory$1.run(FontManagerFactory.java:83)
        at java.security.AccessController.doPrivileged(Native Method)
        at sun.font.FontManagerFactory.getInstance(FontManagerFactory.java:74)
        at java.awt.Font.getFont2D(Font.java:490)
        at java.awt.Font.getFamily(Font.java:1219)
        at java.awt.Font.getFamily_NoClientCode(Font.java:1193)
        at java.awt.Font.getFamily(Font.java:1185)
        at java.awt.Font.toString(Font.java:1682)
        at hudson.util.ChartUtil.<clinit>(ChartUtil.java:229)
        at hudson.WebAppMain.contextInitialized(WebAppMain.java:181)
        ... 19 more

Jul 18, 2014 10:53:56 AM org.eclipse.jetty.util.log.JavaUtilLog warn
WARNING: Failed startup of context w.{,file:/home/maxerdwien/.jenkins/war/},/homes/maxerdwien/.jenkins/war
java.lang.NullPointerException
        at jenkins.util.groovy.GroovyHookScript.run(GroovyHookScript.java:63)
        at hudson.util.BootFailure.publish(BootFailure.java:43)
        at hudson.WebAppMain.contextInitialized(WebAppMain.java:244)
        at org.eclipse.jetty.server.handler.ContextHandler.callContextInitialized(ContextHandler.java:782)
        at org.eclipse.jetty.servlet.ServletContextHandler.callContextInitialized(ServletContextHandler.java:424)
        at org.eclipse.jetty.server.handler.ContextHandler.startContext(ContextHandler.java:774)
        at org.eclipse.jetty.servlet.ServletContextHandler.startContext(ServletContextHandler.java:249)
        at org.eclipse.jetty.webapp.WebAppContext.startContext(WebAppContext.java:1242)
        at org.eclipse.jetty.server.handler.ContextHandler.doStart(ContextHandler.java:717)
        at org.eclipse.jetty.webapp.WebAppContext.doStart(WebAppContext.java:494)
        at org.eclipse.jetty.util.component.AbstractLifeCycle.start(AbstractLifeCycle.java:64)
        at org.eclipse.jetty.server.handler.HandlerWrapper.doStart(HandlerWrapper.java:95)
        at org.eclipse.jetty.server.Server.doStart(Server.java:282)
        at org.eclipse.jetty.util.component.AbstractLifeCycle.start(AbstractLifeCycle.java:64)
        at winstone.Launcher.<init>(Launcher.java:154)
        at winstone.Launcher.main(Launcher.java:354)
        at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
        at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:57)
        at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
        at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:606)
        at Main._main(Main.java:293)
        at Main.main(Main.java:98)

Jul 18, 2014 10:53:56 AM org.eclipse.jetty.util.log.JavaUtilLog info
INFO: Started [email protected]:8080
Jul 18, 2014 10:53:56 AM winstone.Logger logInternal
INFO: Winstone Servlet Engine v2.0 running: controlPort=disabled

Any help would be very appreciated. I've been googling for days.

Answer 1

The FreeBSD server is a headless server. So it doesn't have any graphics installed, including fonts.

For some reason, Jenkins tries to access fonts when it loads. This behavior can be suppressed by adding the option -Djava.awt.headless=true to the container JVM. This is the solution that worked for me.

It looks like some operating systems recognize this type of error, but FreeBSD does not. https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/Jenkins+got+java.awt.headless+problem

Answer 2

Check the permission of the jenkins folder. make sure the user run the jenkins server have the permission to access the folder.

Answer 3

For me -Djava.awt.headless=true didn't help at all. In fact, it's already specified in the Fedora default config, so chances are it's also in the default FreeBSD config. For me it missed the fontconfig package.

Details: http://vault-tec.info/post/98877792626/jenkins-service-unavailable

Answer 4

Am facing the same issue here, and adding -Djava.awt.headless=true doesn't help. I downloaded jenkins.war and tried running it using java -jar jenkins.war on windows 7 & 10 and it doesn't work. Am running java version,

java version "1.8.0_144"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_144-b01)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.144-b01, mixed mode)

The solution that worked for me,
1. Uninstall all versions of java and updates from your system
2. Cleanup temporary files and registry (I used CCLeaner)
3. Download latest version from Oracle
4. Install and like this comment if this solution worked for you !

Additionally, try removing the .jenkins directory, if possible