DRAFT KB-XXXX Appian URL uses a database schema, server, or port different than what is defined in custom.properties

Symptoms

Symptom 1

The login page loads via HTTPS but static content does not load. Inspecting the page through a network capture reveals that static content response is coming from an undesired port.

Symptom 2

Setting a default User Start Page on the 'User Start Pages' tab of the Admin Console yields the following error:

The URL is invalid or has an incorrect base URL. The base URL must be https://FQDN:<INCORRECT_PORT>

Symptom 3

Logging in yields a 401 error when hitting:

https://<FQDN>/suite

Symptom 4

JBoss or Tomcat fail to start with errors that point to data sources that do not exist in custom.properties, appian-ds.xml, nor standalone.xml/tomcatResources.xml. 

Cause

A custom.properties file exists somewhere else on the server other than the expected location.

Apache commons-configuration PropertiesConfiguration will attempt to find a file specified by just the name with a call to ConfigurationUtils.locate() which resolves in the following order:

1. Directly from the URL
2. Base directory
3. User's home directory (if it exists)
4. Classpath

The /conf/ directory is on the classpath, so Appian expects to use the custom.properties file on step 4. However, if a custom.properties file is found in one of the directories before step 4, Appian will use that file rather than the expected custom.properties file in the /conf/ directory. 

Hence, if stale versions of custom.properties exist in a user's home directory and this user attempts to start the application server, Appian will pick-up the wrong file and the application server will fail to start.

• A custom.properties file with stale values exists in the user’s home directory. Hence, JBoss/Tomcat overwrites updates made to the custom.properties in step 4 with the stale values from the rogue custom.properties file
• The application server could not start because the data sources defined in the stale custom.properties file are not present in the appian-ds.xml, standalone.xml, or tomcatResources.xml files. Given that Apache found a stale custom.properties file, it will utilize its configurations. This causes a mismatch between custom.properties and the appian-ds.xml, standalone.xml, or tomcatResources.xml files

Action

Find and remove any custom.properties files extraneous to the classpath.

Affected Versions

This article applies to Appian 18.4 and earlier.

Last Reviewed: September 2019