Symptoms

On startup, JIRA quickly enters a state where the process consumes all available memory without ever releasing it. Additionally, the application stops responding to any new requests.

Diagnosis

1. JIRA Standalone is installed on Windows and configured to used 64-bit Java Virtual Machine.
2. The application's Windows Service is set up to use the Tomcat's Procrun 64-bit executables as per JRA-12965.
3. Used Tomcat version is 6.0.20 - 6.0.23
4. Problem is observed regardless of JVM memory configuration, load on the server or the size of the application.

Cause

The behavior is caused by incompatibility of the Procrun 64-bit executables with the used Tomcat version.

Resolution

The Procrun 64-bit executables version needs to be the same as Tomcat. Unfortunately, Tomcat developers didn't release the executables suitable for 6.0.20 - 6.0.23 Tomcat releases.

The problem can be resolved by:

• Deploying JIRA WAR in more recent Tomcat release (6.0.32 recommended), where the executables are provided - Installing JIRA WAR-EAR.
• Configure JIRA with 32-bit JAVA.
• Upgrade JIRA Standalone to the 4.3.1 (when released) which should bundle Tomcat 6.0.32 - JRA-22179.