Install Solr 43 pay attention to log libraries

Posted on One min read

After I configured Solr 4.3 on a Virtual Machine (side by side with a 4.0) it refuses to start, and the only error I have in catilina log files is

  • SEVERE: Error filterStart *

This leaved me puzzled, but thanks to Alexandre and the exceptional Solr Mailing list I was directed toward the solution. Solr 4.3 changed logging mechanism; and in this link http://wiki.apache.org/solr/SolrLogging#What_changed you can read about what changed and how to enable logging for Solr 4.3.

It turns out that I’ve entirely missed this step

  • Copy the jars from solr/example/lib/ext into your container’s main lib directory. For tomcat this is usually tomcat/lib. These jars will set up SLF4J and log4j.

And this is the only reason why my Solr Instance refused to start, after libs are inside Tomcat/lib everything works as expected. It could be not your problem, but once logging libraries are there, surely you will get a better log that will help you troubleshoot why Solr refuses to start.

Gian Maria