KB-1397 Unable to find required packages via classloader error upon 17.2 startup

Symptoms

When attempting to start the application server in an Appian 17.2 installation with Weblogic, the following error appears in the application server log:

<Jun 19, 2017 5:08:25 PM GMT> <Notice> <Stdout> <BEA-000000> <2017-06-19 17:08:25,935 [[STANDBY] ExecuteThread: '1' for queue: 'weblogic.kernel.Default (self-tuning)'] ERROR com.atlassian.event.internal.EventPublisherImpl - There was an exception thrown trying to dispatch event 'com.atlassian.plugin.event.events.PluginFrameworkStartingEvent@3174803a' from the invoker 'com.atlassian.plugin.event.impl.MethodSelectorListenerHandler$1$1@136cc153'.
java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to find required packages via classloader or servlet context scanning, most likely due to an application server bug.

After this error occurs, Appian fails to start.

Cause

This error occurs due to Oracle bug 22265544 in Weblogic 12.2.1.0. Appian does not support the use of this version of Weblogic with Appian 17.2.

Action

Migrate your Appian instance to the supported version of Weblogic mentioned in the documentation: version 12.2.1.2

Affected Versions

This article applies to Appian 17.2.

Last Reviewed: August 2017