Summary

This error may appear when updating your Atlassian Crowd license. The license is incompatible with the current setup and will throw an error until fixed.

Environment

Atlassian Crowd Server and Data Center.

Cause

Each cause isn't related to another but, you may be affected by more than one.

1. You have more licensed users than your license tier supports, e.g. license tier for 100 users but you have 104 licensed users.
2. An expired commercial license was applied on a newer version of Crowd Server.
   1. Atlassian Crowd started with an expired evaluation license
3. Lack of permission in the Crowd folders and/or files.

Diagnosis

Based on each cause aforementioned, check if the following applies to your case and follow the resolution section accordingly.

1. The warning message "Your license has now expired. An updated license must be installed to continue using Crowd" appears in Crowd License UI indicating that the Crowd license has expired while the license is still active. The following message appears in the atlassian-crowd.log

2016-05-13 16:12:42,290 localhost-startStop-1 ERROR [crowd.manager.license.CrowdLicenseManagerImpl] License resource limit has been reached.
2016-05-13 16:12:42,399 localhost-startStop-1 ERROR [crowd.console.listener.StartupListener] Crowd cannot be started as your license has reached its resource limit.

Check if the number of users allowed to authenticate in Crowd has reached the number user limit for Crowd user license by running the following database query:

SELECT cu.lower_user_name,
       cu.directory_id
FROM cwd_user cu
INNER JOIN cwd_directory cd ON cu.directory_id = cd.id
WHERE cd.active = 'T'
  AND (cu.lower_user_name IN
    (SELECT u.lower_user_name
     FROM cwd_user u
     JOIN cwd_membership m ON u.id = m.child_id
     JOIN cwd_group g ON m.parent_id = g.id
     JOIN cwd_app_dir_group_mapping gm ON gm.group_name = g.group_name
     JOIN cwd_app_dir_group_mapping gm_1 ON gm_1.directory_id = g.directory_id
     JOIN cwd_application ca ON ca.id = gm.application_id
     JOIN cwd_app_dir_mapping dm ON dm.application_id =ca.id
     JOIN cwd_directory cd ON cd.id = dm.directory_id
     WHERE dm.allow_all ='F'
       AND u.active ='T'
       AND ca.active='T'
       AND gm_1.directory_id=gm.directory_id
       AND cd.active = 'T')
  OR lower_user_name IN
    (SELECT u.lower_user_name
     FROM cwd_user u
     JOIN cwd_app_dir_mapping dm ON dm.directory_id =u.directory_id
     JOIN cwd_application ca ON dm.application_id =ca.id
     JOIN cwd_directory cd ON cd.id = dm.directory_id
     WHERE dm.allow_all ='T'
       AND u.active ='T'
       AND ca.active='T'
       AND cd.active = 'T'));

The Crowd license user count is based on the number of users who will log in to applications integrated with Crowd. Generally, that would be users of the "Can Login" groups. Additionally, in the directory list for an application (e.g., Confluence: Crowd console -> Applications -> Confluence -> Directories), if the Allow all to Authenticate option is set to true, Crowd will count all the users in the directory.

2. The license is no longer compatible with a newer version of Crowd Server that was released after the license expiration date. The following message appears in the atlassian-crowd.log

2022-07-08 17:13:14,720 localhost-startStop-1 ERROR [crowd.console.listener.StartupListener] Crowd cannot be started as your maintenance period ended on 11 August 2020.
2022-07-08 17:13:14,721 localhost-startStop-1 INFO [crowd.console.listener.StartupListener] License is invalid. Upgrades were not performed.

3. The system user running Crowd doesn't have full read/write permissions to certain folders. The following or a similar message appears in the atlassian-crowd.log

2022-10-03 12:40:03,266 https-ssl-nio-443-exec-55 ERROR [crowd.manager.license.CrowdLicenseStore] Failed to set license
com.atlassian.config.ConfigurationException: Couldn't save crowd.cfg.xml to c:\data\crowd-home\shared directory.

Resolution

Cause number 1 - When you have more licensed users than your license tier supports:

1. Use the evaluation license as a temporary solution in order to log in and reduce the number of user count towards the Crowd license.
2. (Create a 30-day evaluation license key here.) The 30-day evaluation key lets an unlimited number of users sign in during the trial period. You can use the 30 days to clean up the users in the system.
3. Log in to your Atlassian account >> Click on my Account >>> Click on New Evaluation License >>>> Select the product license that you want.
4. Reduce the number of user counts as discussed in this link.
5. Reapply for the Crowd Production License.

Cause number 2 - An expired license was applied on a newer version of Crowd Server.

Apply your renewed and valid license from My Atlassian site. If the license has expired and renewal is no longer available, you won't be able to apply it in a newer version of Crowd. If it's an expired evaluation license, only the DC option is available to generate at the My Atlassian site.

Cause number 3 - Lack of permission in the Crowd folders and/or files:

Ensure that the user running Crowd on your server has Read, Write and Execute permissions.