Jira server fails to start with Could not create necessary subdirectory error
Symptoms
JIRA is unable to startup. You may see a message like the following in the browser:
JIRA Startup Failed
Unable to create and acquire lock file for jira.home directory '/var/atlassian/application-data/jira'.
The following appears in the atlassian-jira.log:
2012-12-20 00:58:11,503 localhost-startStop-1 INFO [atlassian.jira.startup.JiraStartupLogger] Running JIRA startup checks.
2012-12-20 00:58:11,576 localhost-startStop-1 FATAL [atlassian.jira.startup.JiraStartupLogger]
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Could not create necessary subdirectory 'caches/indexes' of jira.home.
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2012-12-20 00:58:11,584 localhost-startStop-1 FATAL [atlassian.jira.startup.JiraStartupLogger] Startup check failed. JIRA will be locked.
2012-12-20 00:58:13,185 localhost-startStop-1 ERROR [jira.web.dispatcher.JiraWebworkActionDispatcher]
The directory name may be different the above, however it is still the same cause.
OR
2014-06-11 23:03:02,590 localhost-startStop-1 FATAL [atlassian.jira.startup.JiraStartupLogger]
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Could not create jira.home directory 'S:\Captain Planet\JIRA\Application Data\JIRA6.2.3'. Please see https://docs.atlassian.com/jira/docs-062/Setting+your+JIRA+Home+Directory for more information on how to set up your JIRA home directory.
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2014-06-11 23:03:02,595 localhost-startStop-1 WARN [atlassian.jira.startup.ChecklistLauncher] Setting an unset default variable "plugin.webresource.batching.off" to: false
2014-06-11 23:03:02,596 localhost-startStop-1 INFO [atlassian.jira.startup.JiraStartupLogger] Running JIRA startup checks.
2014-06-11 23:03:02,596 localhost-startStop-1 FATAL [atlassian.jira.startup.JiraStartupLogger] Startup check failed. JIRA will be locked.
Cause
The user that is running JIRA does not have the appropriate file system permissions to create the specified directory.
Resolution
- Stop JIRA.
Ensure that the user running JIRA has the appropriate permissions (read/write/execute) to the specified directory. They can be fixed with the following (this assumes the user running JIRA is the default
jirauser).- Start JIRA. This process may need to be repeated for any other directories.
If this is a new installation of JIRA, ensure it is being installed with an Administration user and the installer is also run as an Administrator.