Portal for ArcGIS 10.7 issue: internal portal database does not appear to be running or accepting connections

[MwalimuKaranja]

Hi! I was running Portal for ArcGIS on a Windows Server 2012 R2 server for a while until up to a week ago when it suddenly went down. The Portal for ArcGIS Windows Service shows that the service is running but it is not possible to access the portal site on port 7443. I took a look at some of the logs and this is what I got from the Portal logs in the arcgisportal folder:

Failed to start the portal. The observer's beforeStart() function returned a failure.

Also had a look at the logs in the C:\Program Files\ArcGIS\Portal\framework\service\logs folder and got the following in the service-0.log:

<Msg time="2019-07-28T18:13:49,381" type="SEVERE" code="218010" source="Portal Admin" process="1592" thread="1" methodName="" machine="" user="" elapsed="">The portal has been initialized and configured but is not accessible. The internal portal database does not appear to be running or accepting connections. Restart the portal machine or machines and if the problem persists, contact Esri technical support (U.S.) or your distributor (customers outside the U.S.).</Msg>

Got the following on the service-error-0.log:

Sun Jul 28 18:13:54.019 EAT 2019 java.lang.NullPointerException
Sun Jul 28 18:13:54.019 EAT 2019 at com.esri.arcgis.portal.observers.ConfigObserver.c(ConfigObserver.java:793)
Sun Jul 28 18:13:54.019 EAT 2019 at com.esri.arcgis.portal.observers.ConfigObserver.e(ConfigObserver.java:900)
Sun Jul 28 18:13:54.019 EAT 2019 at com.esri.arcgis.portal.observers.ConfigObserver.beforeStart(ConfigObserver.java:191)
Sun Jul 28 18:13:54.019 EAT 2019 at com.esri.arcgis.portal.impl.ObserverManager.beforeStart(ObserverManager.java:159)
Sun Jul 28 18:13:54.019 EAT 2019 at com.esri.arcgis.portal.impl.NodeAgent.start(NodeAgent.java:246)
Sun Jul 28 18:13:54.019 EAT 2019 at com.esri.arcgis.portal.impl.Main.start(Main.java:83)

Might anyone have an idea how to solve this issue. What might I be doing wrong?

[RussellEgypt]

Hi Stephen

I have the same problem in that the server.xml file had been corrupted (filled with NULL bytes). I'm running Version 10.8.1 and I'm just enquiring where we can get a valid server.xml file. I see Fred has posted a template for 10.7.1 don't know if I can use that file?

Thank You!

[StephenKaranja]

Hi Russell,

We're also running ArcGIS Enterprise 10.8.1. I used the server.xml posted by Fred. After restarting the server machine (restarting just the Portal for ArcGIS service didn't work for me), the Portal for ArcGIS service started correctly, and I believe it modified the server.xml file (I determined this by looking at the file's modification time after startup). I would have posted the server.xml file from our server but I can't access it at the moment.

[RussellEgypt]

Hi Stephen,

Thank You, the file from Fred worked!

[DuongHB]

We faced the same issue with 10.6.1 (updated all security patches until Dec 2020). We followed all of your steps and it worked. Just change a bit at step 4, we needed to restart the machine since restart just Portal service seems not work.

Thanks for your guide!

[IhabHassan]

for some reason I wasn't able to publish any hosted layer/table on my local Portal, reindexing fixed the issue.
Thanks Craig 

[CraigRussell]

Hi Mwalimu

You've probably checked this already, but is there anything useful/notable in Windows Event Viewer when you restart the Portal service?

Craig

[MwalimuKaranja]

Hi Craig,

The Event Viewer has multiple Portal for ArcGIS information activities noted, that's all. A sample can be seen below:

[CraigRussell]

Hi Mwalimu

Apologies, I missed your last reply.  Did you get this resolved?  If not then what are the Postgres errors in the Event Viewer?  These might be relevant considering your logs suggest a problem with the internal Portal database.

Regards

Craig

[subbaraoP]

Dear Craig,

I am also facing the same issue. Could you please provide the work around. 

Regards

Venkat

[JonathanQuinn]

If the postgres.exe processes aren't running on your machine, you'll need to investigate the Event Viewer to see why Postgres is failing to start. You can ignore the entries like "is server running" or "postmaster.pid can't be found".