Tomcat will not start with "recent version of the Java Runtime" error

Symptom

The application server fails to start. The below error is thrown in the application server log:

YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS.sss SEVERE [localhost-startStop-1] org.apache.catalina.core.ContainerBase.addChildInternal ContainerBase.addChild: start: org.apache.catalina.LifecycleException: Failed to start component [StandardEngine[Catalina].StandardHost[localhost].StandardContext[/suite]] ... 

Caused by: java.lang.UnsupportedClassVersionError: com/microsoft/sqlserver/jdbc/SQLServerDriver has been compiled by a more recent version of the Java Runtime (class file version 54.0), this version of the Java Runtime only recognizes class file versions up to 52.0

Cause

This issue occurs when using a database driver compiled in Java 10. 

Action

Delete any database driver that is not compiled in the correct java version. The drivers are located in the <Appian_Home>tomcat/apache-tomcat/lib directory.

Affected Versions

This article applies to Appian 18.3 and later.