Symptoms

When starting Confluence, there seems to be no activity after a period of time. Looking at thread dumps, you might notice there are threads waiting on the database.

Diagnosis

SQL Server is the database, and ?requireSSL=true is set in the connection string configured in confluence.cfg.xml

Cause

Confluence does not trust the SSL certificate presented by SQL Server. This would normally throw a PKIX Certificate error, but it does not seem to in this situation.

Resolution

• Add the SSL certificate to the JAVA trust store (usually located at <java-home>/jre/lib/security/cacerts)