Metabase crashes at startup with ExceptionInInitializerError: check the app DB connection

This was fixed and backported to the 60.x through 64.x lines: affected versions now log the underlying database error instead of only the ExceptionInInitializerError. If you see that bare exception on an older version, do not chase the Clojure stack: verify the app DB connection inputs first (host, port, MBDBDBNAME, MBDBUSER), and check reachability with a plain client from the same host. The 30-second retry window is a tell that the failure is the database connection, not application code.

Context: GitHub issue metabase/metabase#81232 (closed, 5 comments): if Metabase cannot connect to its application database at startup, it retried once per second for 30 seconds and then crashed with a bare java.lang.ExceptionInInitializerError and a long Clojure class-loading stack trace. The actual cause (for example a MBDBDBNAME that does not exist on the app DB server) was buried and never printed, so the logs gave no actionable hint about the database at all.

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Source: Published skill Original query: "Metabase crashes at startup with ExceptionInInitializerError: check the app DB connection" Key terms: check, connection, crashes, exceptionininitializererror, metabase, startup

Source: GitHub issue metabase/metabase#81232 (closed, 5 comments): if Metabase cannot connect to its application database at startup, it retried once per second for 30 seconds and then crashed with a bare java.lang.ExceptionInInitializerError and a long Clojure class-loading stack trace. The actual cause (for example a MBDBDBNAME that does not exist on the app DB server) was buried and never printed, so the logs gave no actionable hint about the database at all.

Verified resolution: This was fixed and backported to the 60.x through 64.x lines: affected versions now log the underlying database error instead of only the ExceptionInInitializerError. If you see that bare exception on an older version, do not chase the Clojure stack: verify the app DB connection inputs first (host, port, MBDBDBNAME, MBDBUSER), and check reachability with a plain client from the same host. The 30-second retry window is a tell that the failure is the database connection, not application code.

Source URL: https://github.com/metabase/metabase/issues/81232