Apache Flume agent not starting but not showing error - flume

Question

I'm attempting to run an Apache Flume agent from an AWS EC2 cluster but when I start the agent, it neither starts nor throws an obvious error.
I'm just starting with the simple example from Apache's documentation.
When I run:
ubuntu#ip-172-31-41-5:~/Flume$ ./bin/flume-ng agent --conf conf --conf-file example.conf --name a1 -Dflume.root.logger=DEBUG,console
The console output is the following:
Info: Sourcing environment configuration script /home/ubuntu/Flume/conf/flume-env.sh
Info: Including HBASE libraries found via (/home/ubuntu/hbase-2.4.4/bin/hbase) for HBASE access
Info: Including Hive libraries found via () for Hive access
+ exec /usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-amd64/bin/java -Xmx20m -Dflume.root.logger=DEBUG,console -Dflume.root.logger=DEBUG,console -cp '/home/ubuntu/Flume/conf:/home/ubuntu/Flume/lib/*:/home/ubuntu/hbase-2.4.4/conf:/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-amd64/lib/tools.jar:/home/ubuntu/hbase-2.4.4:/home/ubuntu/hbase-2.4.4/lib/shaded-clients/hbase-shaded-client-2.4.4.jar:/home/ubuntu/hbase-2.4.4/lib/client-facing-thirdparty/audience-annotations-0.5.0.jar:/home/ubuntu/hbase-2.4.4/lib/client-facing-thirdparty/commons-logging-1.2.jar:/home/ubuntu/hbase-2.4.4/lib/client-facing-thirdparty/htrace-core4-4.2.0-incubating.jar:/home/ubuntu/hbase-2.4.4/lib/client-facing-thirdparty/log4j-1.2.17.jar:/home/ubuntu/hbase-2.4.4/lib/client-facing-thirdparty/slf4j-api-1.7.30.jar:/home/ubuntu/hbase-2.4.4/conf:/lib/*' -Djava.library.path=:/usr/java/packages/lib/amd64:/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/jni:/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu:/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu:/usr/lib/jni:/lib:/usr/lib org.apache.flume.node.Application --conf-file example.conf --name a1 ./bin/flume-ng agent --conf-file example.conf --name a1
The agent doesn't throw an error but never gets further than this. I have also tried some variations including --conf-file conf/example.conf
Flume and Java appear to be installed correctly:
Flume
ubuntu#ip-172-31-41-5:~/Flume$ ./bin/flume-ng version
Source code repository: https://git.apache.org/repos/asf/flume.git
Revision: 1a15927e594fd0d05a59d804b90a9c31ec93f5e1
Compiled by rgoers on Sun Oct 16 14:44:15 MST 2022
From source with checksum bbbca682177262aac3a89defde369a37
Java
ubuntu#ip-172-31-41-5:~/Flume$ java -version
openjdk version "11.0.17" 2022-10-18
OpenJDK Runtime Environment (build 11.0.17+8-post-Ubuntu-1ubuntu222.04)
OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM (build 11.0.17+8-post-Ubuntu-1ubuntu222.04, mixed mode, sharing)
Example.conf
# example.conf: A single-node Flume configuration
# Name the components on this agent
a1.sources = r1
a1.sinks = k1
a1.channels = c1
# Describe/configure the source
a1.sources.r1.type = netcat
a1.sources.r1.bind = localhost
a1.sources.r1.port = 44444
# Describe the sink
a1.sinks.k1.type = logger
# Use a channel which buffers events in memory
a1.channels.c1.type = memory
a1.channels.c1.capacity = 1000
a1.channels.c1.transactionCapacity = 100
# Bind the source and sink to the channel
a1.sources.r1.channels = c1
a1.sinks.k1.channel = c1
Flume.env
# Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
# or more contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file
# distributed with this work for additional information
# regarding copyright ownership. The ASF licenses this file
# to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
# "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
# with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at
#
# http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
#
# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
# limitations under the License.
# If this file is placed at FLUME_CONF_DIR/flume-env.sh, it will be sourced
# during Flume startup.
# Enviroment variables can be set here.
export JAVA_HOME=/usr/lib/jvm/java-8-openjdk-amd64
# Give Flume more memory and pre-allocate, enable remote monitoring via JMX
# export JAVA_OPTS="-Xms100m -Xmx2000m -Dcom.sun.management.jmxremote"
# Let Flume write raw event data and configuration information to its log files for debugging
# purposes. Enabling these flags is not recommended in production,
# as it may result in logging sensitive user information or encryption secrets.
# export JAVA_OPTS="$JAVA_OPTS -Dorg.apache.flume.log.rawdata=true -Dorg.apache.flume.log.printconfig=true "
# Note that the Flume conf directory is always included in the classpath.
#FLUME_CLASSPATH=""
The only clue that I have is is in flume.log which shows the following error. I've even copied example.conf into the main Flume directory but it doesn't seem to make a difference.
03 Dec 2022 21:10:03,538 ERROR [main] (org.apache.flume.node.Application.main:506) - A fatal error occurred while running. Exception follows.org.apache.flume.conf.ConfigurationException: Unable to read file /home/ubuntu/Flume/example.confat org.apache.flume.node.FileConfigurationSource.<init>(FileConfigurationSource.java:52) ~[flume-ng-node-1.11.0.jar:1.11.0]at org.apache.flume.node.FileConfigurationSourceFactory.createConfigurationSource(FileConfigurationSourceFactory.java:40) ~[flume-ng-node-1.11.0.jar:1.11.0]at org.apache.flume.node.ConfigurationSourceFactory.getConfigurationSource(ConfigurationSourceFactory.java:39) ~[flume-ng-node-1.11.0.jar:1.11.0]at org.apache.flume.node.Application.main(Application.java:476) ~[flume-ng-node-1.11.0.jar:1.11.0]Caused by: java.nio.file.NoSuchFileException: /home/ubuntu/Flume/example.confat sun.nio.fs.UnixException.translateToIOException(UnixException.java:86) ~[?:1.8.0_352]at sun.nio.fs.UnixException.rethrowAsIOException(UnixException.java:102) ~[?:1.8.0_352]at sun.nio.fs.UnixException.rethrowAsIOException(UnixException.java:107) ~[?:1.8.0_352]at sun.nio.fs.UnixFileSystemProvider.newByteChannel(UnixFileSystemProvider.java:214) ~[?:1.8.0_352]at java.nio.file.Files.newByteChannel(Files.java:361) ~[?:1.8.0_352]at java.nio.file.Files.newByteChannel(Files.java:407) ~[?:1.8.0_352]at java.nio.file.Files.readAllBytes(Files.java:3152) ~[?:1.8.0_352]at org.apache.flume.node.FileConfigurationSource.<init>(FileConfigurationSource.java:49) ~[flume-ng-node-1.11.0.jar:1.11.0]... 3 more