KB-1990 Tomcat fails to start on Linux when heap is specified in custom.properties

Symptoms

Tomcat fails to start when the app server heap parameters are defined in custom.properties. The following error is seen in the tomcat-stdOut.log:

========================================================================= 
YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS Beginning to start Appian in Tomcat Invalid initial heap size: -XmsXXXXm Error: Could not create the Java Virtual Machine. Error: A fatal exception has occurred. Program will exit. 
YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS Appian in Tomcat is stopped nohup: ignoring input

Cause

1. There may be syntax issues with the following lines in custom.properties:
   

   conf.appserver.minHeapSize= 
   conf.appserver.maxHeapSize=

2. Windows line endings are being parsed by a Linux script. This occurs when the custom.properties file is edited in a Windows environment, and then moved onto a Linux server that will host Appian.

Action

1. Update custom.properties with the heap properties as needed, and with proper syntax. For example:
   

   conf.appserver.minHeapSize=2048M 
   conf.appserver.maxHeapSize=4096M

2.  Run the command dos2unix custom.properties on the Linux server hosting Appian.
3.  Restart the application server.

Affected Versions

This article applies to Appian 18.3 and later on Linux.

Last Reviewed: September 2019