Windows service not defining -XX:MaxPermSize is causing Stash to get stuck on startup

We realised that the Windows Service is not setting anything for the following JVM property:

-XX:MaxPermSize

That has been the culprit for a few customers trying to evaluate Stash – it gets stuck and doesn't startup properly.

Specifically :

• Starting up Stash as a service caused Stash to get stuck
• Starting up using start-stash.bat would bring it up just fine
• After including -XX:MaxPermSize=512m to the service, it worked out well starting Stash as a service.

The error message which gets logged is:

java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: PermGen space

To update the MaxPermSize configuration in the service users must:

• Open a command prompt as the administrator user
• Go into the Stash installation directory and run bin\tomcat8w.exe //ES//AtlassianStash. This will open the Tomcat service configuration window.
• In the Java tab update the Jvm Options to set -XX:MaxPermSize=512m
• Apply the changes and re-start the service

Alternatively customers are encouraged to upgrade Java to version 1.8 in which PermGen errors will no longer be present. In Stash versions earlier than 3.5.0 the Tomcat service configuration tool will need to be used to update the path to the newly installed JVM. Stash versions 3.5.0 and higher set this configuration in an environment variable.