Can't Launch & Stuck Initializing After Fresh Install

I installed Jenkins using the prescribed method and have not been able to get it to work. The service hangs after this point in the startup process:

root@jenkins:/var/log/jenkins# systemctl status jenkins
* jenkins.service - Jenkins Continuous Integration Server
     Loaded: loaded (/etc/systemd/system/jenkins.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
     Active: activating (start) since Sat 2023-02-18 03:14:17 UTC; 9s ago
   Main PID: 50264 (java)
      Tasks: 51 (limit: 76990)
     Memory: 496.6M
        CPU: 11.856s
     CGroup: /system.slice/jenkins.service
             `-50264 /usr/bin/java -Djava.awt.headless=true -Djava.util.logging.config.file=/var/log/jenkins/logging.pr>

Feb 18 03:14:21 jenkins jenkins[50264]: *************************************************************
Feb 18 03:14:21 jenkins jenkins[50264]: *************************************************************
Feb 18 03:14:21 jenkins jenkins[50264]: Jenkins initial setup is required. An admin user has been created and a passwor>
Feb 18 03:14:21 jenkins jenkins[50264]: Please use the following password to proceed to installation:
Feb 18 03:14:21 jenkins jenkins[50264]: 49754a687d0b47f9af57965bfc3fbf8c
Feb 18 03:14:21 jenkins jenkins[50264]: This may also be found at: /var/lib/jenkins/secrets/initialAdminPassword
Feb 18 03:14:21 jenkins jenkins[50264]: *************************************************************
Feb 18 03:14:21 jenkins jenkins[50264]: *************************************************************
Feb 18 03:14:21 jenkins jenkins[50264]: *************************************************************
Feb 18 03:14:21 jenkins jenkins[50264]:

And the client has not moved past this screen after 3 hours, despite the page refreshing every 5 minutes or so.

There is no additional information in the systemctl logs even after setting the logging level to ALL by using an appropriate logging.properties file.

Jenkins Version: 2.375.3
Java Version:

  • Package: openjdk-11-jre
  • Version: 11.0.18+10-1~deb11u1
    OS: Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye)

Not a great experience, overall, as the service initially failed to start repeatedly. Itā€™s been so long since I started trying to get this up and running that I forgot how I fixed it. Can anyone help? If not, where should I report bugs officially?

See the issue reporting instructions at:

Since there are over 275000 installations of Jenkins running in the world and over 40000 of those are running Jenkins 2.375.x, you have a very specific situation, likely unique to you. I would expect it to be quite a challenge to identify what is causing your system to behave differently from all those other systems.

Some of the things that might cause Jenkins to fail to progress could include:

  • Inadequate memory (be sure there is enough memory)
  • Insufficient disc space (be sure there is enough disc space)
  • I/O bandwidth limits exceeded on cloud hosts (use a local file system)
  • File system locks or delays on network file systems (use a local file system)
  • Inadequate memory (be sure there is enough memory)

4 GB meets the reccomended requirememts, and the minimum is 256MB. If the system is not progressing when it meets the minimum specified, that is a bug either in the program or the specs.

  • Insufficient disc space (be sure there is enough disc space)
    I have 15 GB of drive space, which far exceeds the minimum and should not cause any issues.

  • I/O bandwidth limits exceeded on cloud hosts (use a local file system)
    This is not a cloud system, this point is irrelevant.

  • File system locks or delays on network file systems (use a local file system)
    This a local file system, this point is irrelevant.

Also, Mike, as a member of the Governance Board, you might consider being a bit less condescending to people asking for help with the system you govern. I understand that jenkins is popular and generally pretty usable, thatā€™s why I chose it for the project Iā€™m doing, and why Iā€™m frustrated that it did not work. If this is the kind of community that surrounds this product, I will look elsewhere.

Thank you for your time.

My apologies that I was condescending in my reply. Iā€™ll work diligently to be more considerate in the future. Thanks for noting that I was being condescending.

I think that you have a very specific situation that will likely require unique guesses and special exploration to understand it. I donā€™t recall the last time someone encountered a case where the Jenkins controller failed to make progress during startup. If you learn other things about that system that might have caused it to stop, please share them.

I have been able to get jenkins running, but it took giving the VM 8GB of RAM. The recommended 4GB was not enough to successfully get jenkins to run. This may be a first-time run type of issue.

It looks like some bit of the kernel called the OOM Killer killed the process when it took up all the RAM. This caused jenkins to shut down before the login screen was shown. Iā€™m not sure if this is a standard kernel feature or not.

Flattening out that spike seems like something to look at.

1 Like

If the jenkins startup fails with errors like NoClassDefFound its because it gets terminated in between due to timeout. This is the reason if you manually start the jenkins through war it will work but with service it will not.
To fix this issue setting the timeout in the service configs helped me.

sudo vi /lib/systemd/system/jenkins.service

# Configures the time to wait for start-up. If Jenkins does not signal start-up
# completion within the configured time, the service will be considered failed
# and will be shut down again. Takes a unit-less value in seconds, or a time span
# value such as "5min 20s". Pass "infinity" to disable the timeout logic.
TimeoutStartSec=5min
1 Like

i also face this issue for some time now i am trying to install jenkins in order to try and learn it ā€¦ not starting after install.

after adding the timeout it started correctly

thank you !

Hi All,

I am seeing similar issues with a deployment, I have provided some info below:

Hoping this is the right platform/area for this.
Iā€™m trying to install Jenkins as I have previously on Centos, however on Ubuntu 20.04 and 22.04 Iā€™m having issues, primarily on startup though Iā€™m not certain the root cause.
Weā€™ve spent a week or two looking at this now, so trying to reach out to the community here.

Jenkins Version: 2.426
Java Version: Open Jdk11.0.20.1

Jenkins URL view: ā€œPlease wait while Jenkins is getting ready to work ā€¦ā€

Current Error:
jenkins.service: start operation timed out. Terminating.
jenkins.service: Failed with result ā€˜timeoutā€™.
Failed to start Jenkins Continuous Integration Server.

Weā€™ve tried to increase debug logging to level 9, however no more meaningful content appears.
Could anyone suggest a solution or any other appropriate forum to discuss this please? Any help would be most appreciated.
Happy to provide any other detail that is required.

We have also increased timeouts as well as having 16GB RAM available and 50GB disk space so requirements shouldnt be a problem.

Log Output:
systemd[1]: Starting Jenkins Continuous Integration Serverā€¦
jenkins[3463]: Running from: /usr/share/java/jenkins.war
jenkins[3463]: 2024-01-08 18:34:25.881+0000 [id=1] INFO winstone.Logger#logInternal: Beginning extraction from war file
jenkins[3463]: 2024-01-08 18:34:25.933+0000 [id=1] WARNING o.e.j.s.handler.ContextHandler#setContextPath: Empty contextPath
jenkins[3463]: 2024-01-08 18:34:25.986+0000 [id=1] INFO org.eclipse.jetty.server.Server#doStart: jetty-10.0.11; built: 2022-06-21T21:12:44.640Z; git: d988aa016e0bb2de6fba84c1659049c72eae3e32; jvm 17.0.8.1+1-Ubuntu-0ubuntu122.04
jenkins[3463]: 2024-01-08 18:34:26.192+0000 [id=1] INFO o.e.j.w.StandardDescriptorProcessor#visitServlet: NO JSP Support for /, did not find org.eclipse.jetty.jsp.JettyJspServlet
jenkins[3463]: 2024-01-08 18:34:26.240+0000 [id=1] INFO o.e.j.s.s.DefaultSessionIdManager#doStart: Session workerName=node0
jenkins[3463]: 2024-01-08 18:34:26.600+0000 [id=1] INFO hudson.WebAppMain#contextInitialized: Jenkins home directory: /var/lib/jenkins found at: EnvVars.masterEnvVars.get(ā€œJENKINS_HOMEā€)
jenkins[3463]: 2024-01-08 18:34:26.675+0000 [id=1] INFO o.e.j.s.handler.ContextHandler#doStart: Started w.@532721fd{Jenkins v2.361.1,/,file:///var/cache/jenkins/war/,AVAILABLE}{/var/cache/jenkins/war}
jenkins[3463]: 2024-01-08 18:34:26.686+0000 [id=1] INFO o.e.j.server.AbstractConnector#doStart: Started ServerConnector@15b3e5b{HTTP/1.1, (http/1.1)}{0.0.0.0:8080}
jenkins[3463]: 2024-01-08 18:34:26.693+0000 [id=1] INFO org.eclipse.jetty.server.Server#doStart: Started Server@11c20519{STARTING}[10.0.11,sto=0] @1148ms
jenkins[3463]: 2024-01-08 18:34:26.695+0000 [id=27] INFO winstone.Logger#logInternal: Winstone Servlet Engine running: controlPort=disabled
jenkins[3463]: 2024-01-08 18:34:26.932+0000 [id=34] INFO jenkins.InitReactorRunner$1#onAttained: Started initialization
jenkins[3463]: 2024-01-08 18:34:26.935+0000 [id=45] INFO jenkins.InitReactorRunner$1#onAttained: Listed all plugins
jenkins[3463]: 2024-01-08 18:34:27.520+0000 [id=45] INFO jenkins.InitReactorRunner$1#onAttained: Prepared all plugins
jenkins[3463]: 2024-01-08 18:34:27.524+0000 [id=45] INFO jenkins.InitReactorRunner$1#onAttained: Started all plugins
jenkins[3463]: 2024-01-08 18:34:27.529+0000 [id=33] INFO jenkins.InitReactorRunner$1#onAttained: Augmented all extensions
jenkins[3463]: 2024-01-08 18:34:27.681+0000 [id=41] INFO jenkins.InitReactorRunner$1#onAttained: System config loaded
jenkins[3463]: 2024-01-08 18:34:27.682+0000 [id=47] INFO jenkins.InitReactorRunner$1#onAttained: System config adapted
jenkins[3463]: 2024-01-08 18:34:27.682+0000 [id=47] INFO jenkins.InitReactorRunner$1#onAttained: Loaded all jobs
jenkins[3463]: 2024-01-08 18:34:27.684+0000 [id=37] INFO jenkins.InitReactorRunner$1#onAttained: Configuration for all jobs updated
jenkins[3463]: 2024-01-08 18:34:27.702+0000 [id=62] INFO hudson.model.AsyncPeriodicWork#lambda$doRun$1: Started Download metadata
jenkins[3463]: 2024-01-08 18:34:27.713+0000 [id=62] INFO hudson.util.Retrier#start: Attempt #1 to do the action check updates server
jenkins[3463]: 2024-01-08 18:34:27.782+0000 [id=36] INFO jenkins.install.SetupWizard#init:
jenkins[3463]: *************************************************************
jenkins[3463]: *************************************************************
jenkins[3463]: *************************************************************
jenkins[3463]: Jenkins initial setup is required. An admin user has been created and a password generated.
jenkins[3463]: Please use the following password to proceed to installation:
jenkins[3463]: 8f1f21dd815a4082a662fb52fe9efa90
jenkins[3463]: This may also be found at: /var/lib/jenkins/secrets/initialAdminPassword
jenkins[3463]: *************************************************************
jenkins[3463]: *************************************************************
jenkins[3463]: *************************************************************

Please note, we have also tried differing versions of Jenkins and Openjdk all have the same result.

Set

TimeoutStartSec=5min

make Jenkins start to work on my Raspberry Pi 5 (8GB ram). Using 2.454 instead of 2.440.3 also helps.