Confluence Can't Start and Doesn't Create Logfiles due to CATALINA_HOME Being Set
Platform Notice: Data Center - This article applies to Atlassian products on the Data Center platform.
Note that this knowledge base article was created for the Data Center version of the product. Data Center knowledge base articles for non-Data Center-specific features may also work for Server versions of the product, however they have not been tested. Support for Server* products ended on February 15th 2024. If you are running a Server product, you can visit the Atlassian Server end of support announcement to review your migration options.
*Except Fisheye and Crucible
Symptoms
Confluence does not start after running startup.sh.
Cause
Confluence's startup scripts won't override the value of CATALINA_HOME or CATALINA_BASE if they've already been set. Instead, they'll assume that it defines where tomcat should be running.
Resolution
Unset the variable, by either running unset CATALINA_HOME or unset CATALINA_BASE on Unix or Linux platforms, without the backticks, or removing CATALINA_HOME from the relevant user's profile scripts.