Jenkins does not start on macOS 10.12 (Sierra) - jenkins

Question

After upgrading my macOS to Sierra, when I start Jenkins using launchctl load I cannot connect to localhost:8080. If I call launchctl load again, I see response "service already loaded". There is no log file at the default location /var/log/jenkins/ (as set in jenkins-ci.plist). I also tried to create jenkins.log there and chown to jenkins user, but still nothing is printed there.
If I try to start Jenkins using java -jar jenkins.war, I can connect to localhost, but Jenkins runs as a new installation.
I have the latest JRE 1.8.0_102 installed.
How to diagnose the problem?

Answer 1

Seems that Sierra changed the permission of Jenkis folder. So the best solution is:
1. Add execute permissions to org.jenkins-ci.plist:
sudo chmod +x /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.jenkins-ci.plist
2. Set jenkins as the owner of /var/log/jenkins:
sudo chown jenkins /var/log/jenkins
3. Start Jenkins:
sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.jenkins-ci.plist

Answer 2

This happened to me when I upgraded to Sierra and I managed to solve it with the answer from #mac.slusarek . But it happened again recently. This time I had allowed a minor update of the OS and I had also been playing around with SDK Man to switch JDK's. Not sure which one broke my Jenkins but this time around it was not a permissions issue.
I noticed from the logs Jenkins was trying to run on Java 9-ea, which is apparently not supported yet. I had installed Jenkins using the Jenkins installer for Mac, so tried uninstalling:
/Library/Application\ Support/Jenkins/Uninstall.command
and installing again but the issue didn't go away.
Then I found this article suggesting to instead install it using Homebrew. It was as easy as running:
$brew install jenkins
Since I only run it locally for development I don't need to start it as a daemon, so now I just run it by typing
$jenkins
Problem solved. I hope this helps others.

Answer 3

I fixed it by setting the appropriate JAVA_HOME variable. The way I diagnosed it was to look at the errors that were thrown as Jenkins was trying to run:
tail -f /var/log/jenkins/jenkins.log
Then I tried to run it:
sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.jenkins-ci.plist
If it says it's already loaded, unload it first:
sudo launchctl unload /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.jenkins-ci.plist
Then run it:
sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.jenkins-ci.plist
The error I saw was that Jenkins needed Java 8, not Java 10. So I unloaded:
sudo launchctl unload /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.jenkins-ci.plist
and then installed Java 8. Then I edited the plist file:
sudo nano /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.jenkins-ci.plist
and added the appropriate JAVA_HOME environment variable:
<dict>
<key>JENKINS_HOME</key>
<string>/Users/Shared/Jenkins/Home</string>
<key>JAVA_HOME</key>
<string>/Library/Java/JavaVirtualMachines/jdk1.8.0_161.jdk/Contents/Home</string>
</dict>
Finally, I tried the launchctl command again:
sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.jenkins-ci.plist
and voilà!

Answer 4

I had the same issue, installing the JDK didn't made the trick
However changing the rights of the log directory (in my case /var/log/jenkins) and restarting Jenkins worked.
Seems that moving to Sierra changed the rights on this folder.

Answer 5

In my case, the install on Catalina (OSX 10.15) somehow didn't even create the /var/log/jenkins file. I had to
sudo mkdir /var/log/jenkins
and then take ownership and then Jenkins started normally. Just did the normal OSX installer so not sure why the install was corrupt.

Answer 6

As I mentioned in the question, I had JRE installed. After I installed JDK, Jenkins is able to start normally.

Answer 7

This same thing happened to me when I upgraded from Sierra to High Sierra. I followed the instructions outlined above by mac.slusarek, however the jenkins ID no longer existed on my computer. I created the jenkins id as a Standard user.
Also, the files under /Users/Shared/Jenkins were no longer owned by jenkins. After I cat out the error log with the command:
sudo cat /var/log/jenkins/jenkins.log
After seeing the error:
Exception in thread "main" java.io.IOException: Jenkins has failed to create a
temporary file in /Users/Shared/Jenkins/tmp
at Main.extractFromJar(Main.java:368)
at Main._main(Main.java:210)
at Main.main(Main.java:112)
Caused by: java.io.IOException: Permission denied
at java.io.UnixFileSystem.createFileExclusively(Native Method)
at java.io.File.createTempFile(File.java:2024)
at Main.extractFromJar(Main.java:365)
... 2 more
I fixed the ownership with the command:
sudo chown -R jenkins /Users/Shared/Jenkins

Answer 8

I had the same problem.
I manually enabled the read + write access to the
/Users/Shared/Jenkins
Folder.

Answer 9

I was facing issue in loading jenkins-cli.plist command on my MacOs(Mojave version).
Mac Version : Mojave 10.14.6
Jenkins Version : 2.190.1
I installed jenkins using .pkg file.
Reference link : https://java2blog.com/install-jenkins-mac-os-x/
When executing below command,
sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.jenkins-ci.plist
I was facing error saying "already loaded".
Solution:
step 1. Check jenkins logs for exact error.
tail -f /var/log/jenkins/jenkins.log
(In my case, it was port binding issue, port 8080 was already being used by some other application)
step 2. So I decided to start jenkins on some other port (say 7070).You can do this by using below commands.
sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/org.jenkins-ci.plist httpPort 7070
sudo launchctl unload /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.jenkins-ci.plist
sudo launchctl load /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.jenkins-ci.plist
step 3. Try to access it in browser, http://localhost:7070. It should work!!