Setting alternative jira.home directory in JIRA 6 is not working

According to the document here:https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/JIRA/Setting+your+JIRA+Home+Directory

Customer failed to setup JIRA home directory in JIRA 6 by applying the following parameter in server.xml:

<Parameter name="jira.home" value="c:/jira/home"/>

Steps to reproduce:

1. Using the Alternative Method in Setting your JIRA Home Directory
2. Start up JIRA.
3. The following error is shown.

   2013-05-27 15:58:32,881 localhost-startStop-1 ERROR      [atlassian.event.internal.AsynchronousAbleEventDispatcher] There was an exception thrown trying to dispatch event 'com.atlassian.plugin.event.events.PluginFrameworkStartingEvent@34768dc8' from the invoker 'SingleParameterMethodListenerInvoker{method=public void com.atlassian.plugin.osgi.container.felix.FelixOsgiContainerManager.onStart(com.atlassian.plugin.event.events.PluginFrameworkStartingEvent), listener=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.JiraOsgiContainerManager@11cdc190}'.
   java.lang.RuntimeException: No valid JIRA Home directory.
   	at com.atlassian.event.internal.SingleParameterMethodListenerInvoker.invoke(SingleParameterMethodListenerInvoker.java:54)
   	at com.atlassian.event.internal.AsynchronousAbleEventDispatcher$2.run(AsynchronousAbleEventDispatcher.java:66)
   	at com.atlassian.event.internal.AsynchronousAbleEventDispatcher$1.execute(AsynchronousAbleEventDispatcher.java:32)
   	at com.atlassian.event.internal.AsynchronousAbleEventDispatcher.dispatch(AsynchronousAbleEventDispatcher.java:60)
   	at com.atlassian.event.internal.EventPublisherImpl.invokeListeners(EventPublisherImpl.java:160)
   	at com.atlassian.event.internal.EventPublisherImpl.publish(EventPublisherImpl.java:79)
   	at com.atlassian.plugin.event.impl.DefaultPluginEventManager.broadcast(DefaultPluginEventManager.java:84)
   	at com.atlassian.plugin.manager.DefaultPluginManager.init(DefaultPluginManager.java:193)
   	at com.atlassian.jira.plugin.JiraPluginManager.start(JiraPluginManager.java:62)
   	at com.atlassian.jira.ComponentManager$PluginSystem.start(ComponentManager.java:663)
   	at com.atlassian.jira.ComponentManager.startJIRA(ComponentManager.java:218)
   	at com.atlassian.jira.ComponentManager.bootstrapPluginsSystem(ComponentManager.java:178)
   	at com.atlassian.jira.startup.BootstrapContainerLauncher.bootstrapJIRAWhenDBIsNotSetup(BootstrapContainerLauncher.java:93)
   	at com.atlassian.jira.startup.BootstrapContainerLauncher.bootstrapJIRA(BootstrapContainerLauncher.java:60)
   	at com.atlassian.jira.startup.BootstrapContainerLauncher.start(BootstrapContainerLauncher.java:29)
   	at com.atlassian.jira.startup.DefaultJiraLauncher.preDbLaunch(DefaultJiraLauncher.java:81)
   	at com.atlassian.jira.startup.DefaultJiraLauncher.access$000(DefaultJiraLauncher.java:30)
   	at com.atlassian.jira.startup.DefaultJiraLauncher$1.run(DefaultJiraLauncher.java:68)
   	at com.atlassian.jira.util.devspeed.JiraDevSpeedTimer.run(JiraDevSpeedTimer.java:33)
   	at com.atlassian.jira.startup.DefaultJiraLauncher.start(DefaultJiraLauncher.java:64)
   	at com.atlassian.jira.startup.LauncherContextListener.contextInitialized(LauncherContextListener.java:54)  <+5> (StandardContext.java:4791) (StandardContext.java:5285) (LifecycleBase.java:150) (ContainerBase.java:1559) (ContainerBase.java:1549)
   	at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask$Sync.innerRun(FutureTask.java:303)
   	at java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:138)
   	at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.runTask(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:886)
   	at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:908)
   	at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:662)
   Caused by: java.lang.IllegalStateException: No valid JIRA Home directory.
   	at com.atlassian.jira.config.util.DefaultJiraHome.getHome(DefaultJiraHome.java:26)
   	at com.atlassian.jira.plugin.webresource.JiraWebResourceIntegration.getTemporaryDirectory(JiraWebResourceIntegration.java:105)
   	at com.atlassian.plugin.webresource.PluginResourceLocatorImpl.makePhysicalCache(PluginResourceLocatorImpl.java:115)
   	at com.atlassian.plugin.webresource.PluginResourceLocatorImpl.<init>(PluginResourceLocatorImpl.java:86)
   	at com.atlassian.plugin.webresource.PluginResourceLocatorImpl.<init>(PluginResourceLocatorImpl.java:73)  <+2> (NativeConstructorAccessorImpl.java:39) (DelegatingConstructorAccessorImpl.java:27)
   	at java.lang.reflect.Constructor.newInstance(Constructor.java:513)
   	at org.picocontainer.defaults.InstantiatingComponentAdapter.newInstance(InstantiatingComponentAdapter.java:100)
   	at org.picocontainer.defaults.ConstructorInjectionComponentAdapter.instantiateComponent(ConstructorInjectionComponentAdapter.java:200)
   	at org.picocontainer.defaults.InstantiatingComponentAdapter.getComponentInstance(InstantiatingComponentAdapter.java:48)
   	at org.picocontainer.defaults.DecoratingComponentAdapter.getComponentInstance(DecoratingComponentAdapter.java:42)
   	at org.picocontainer.defaults.SynchronizedComponentAdapter.getComponentInstance(SynchronizedComponentAdapter.java:35)
   	at org.picocontainer.defaults.DecoratingComponentAdapter.getComponentInstance(DecoratingComponentAdapter.java:42)
   	at com.atlassian.jira.config.component.ProfilingComponentAdapter.getComponentInstance(ProfilingComponentAdapter.java:45)
   	at org.picocontainer.defaults.ConstructorInjectionComponentAdapter.getConstructorArguments(ConstructorInjectionComponentAdapter.java:222)
   	at org.picocontainer.defaults.ConstructorInjectionComponentAdapter.instantiateComponent(ConstructorInjectionComponentAdapter.java:198)
   	at org.picocontainer.defaults.InstantiatingComponentAdapter.getComponentInstance(InstantiatingComponentAdapter.java:48)
   	at org.picocontainer.defaults.DecoratingComponentAdapter.getComponentInstance(DecoratingComponentAdapter.java:42)
   	at org.picocontainer.defaults.SynchronizedComponentAdapter.getComponentInstance(SynchronizedComponentAdapter.java:35)
   	at org.picocontainer.defaults.DecoratingComponentAdapter.getComponentInstance(DecoratingComponentAdapter.java:42)
   	at com.atlassian.jira.config.component.ProfilingComponentAdapter.getComponentInstance(ProfilingComponentAdapter.java:45)
   	at com.atlassian.jira.ComponentContainer.getComponentInstance(ComponentContainer.java:105)
   	at com.atlassian.jira.ComponentContainer$Registry.getComponents(ComponentContainer.java:335)
   	at com.atlassian.jira.ComponentContainer$HostComponentProviderImpl.provide(ComponentContainer.java:124)
   	at com.atlassian.plugin.osgi.container.felix.FelixOsgiContainerManager.collectHostComponents(FelixOsgiContainerManager.java:516)
   	at com.atlassian.plugin.osgi.container.felix.FelixOsgiContainerManager.start(FelixOsgiContainerManager.java:242)
   	at com.atlassian.jira.plugin.JiraOsgiContainerManager.start(JiraOsgiContainerManager.java:79)
   	at com.atlassian.plugin.osgi.container.felix.FelixOsgiContainerManager.onStart(FelixOsgiContainerManager.java:204)  <+3> (NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39) (DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
   	at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)
   	at com.atlassian.event.internal.SingleParameterMethodListenerInvoker.invoke(SingleParameterMethodListenerInvoker.java:36)
   	... 30 more
   

Finding

• This problem has not happened in JIRA 5.2.
• Tested in JIRA 5.2 and 6 standalone version.

Workaround
Specify the JIRA home path as a parameter to run JIRA. If you're using Tomcat, this is done in CATALINA_OPTS:

-Djira.home=/path/to/jira/home