AEM restart issue. AuthenticationSupport service missing. Cannot authenticate request.

[apoorva_arza]

I am facing the classic HTTP error 503 while restarting my AEM instance.

Error logs state the following

Possible reason is missing repository service. Check AuthenticationSupport dependencies

I have checked that my bundle "Apache Sling Authentication Service (org.apache.sling.auth.core)" is active

I have followed the steps mentioned in this post

I have given the instance a good one hour to start completely

None of the above steps helped fix my issue.

Please suggest any methods you're aware of to troubleshoot this issue. I'm so stuck.

[ChitraMadan]

Hi @apoorva_arza ,

Try to delete below 2 files and restart the instance:

/author/crx-quickstart/repository/segmentstore/repo.lock

/author/crx-quickstart/launchpad/felix/cache.lock

If this also don't work, try deleting the index folder and restarting again, which will build your indexes again and might take some time to start.

[apoorva_arza]

Hi @ChitraMadan, thanks for your answer. The above two solutions did not work for me unfortunately.

[ShivamSingh]

Hi @ChitraMadan , this worked for me. only part to add is first kill java.exe process from task manager. Then remove both files repo.lock & cache.lock. Then restart the AEM instance.

[arunpatidar]

I did not do anything, just deleted below file and it works.
/author/crx-quickstart/launchpad/felix/cache.lock

[saibul]

/publish/crx-quickstart/launchpad/felix/cache.lock doesn't help me

[Vijayalakshmi_S]

Hi @apoorva_arza,

Please check all the available existing error.log files(logs rotated with previous days) in your local instance before you get to notice the exact log statement - "AuthenticationSupport service missing".

Share the initial statement that logged as "Error" level. 

Recently ran into the issue in one of my local instance and the original/initial cause was  Java Heap Space (java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Java heap space) which then eventually lead to "AuthenticationSupport service missing" - While setting up the new instance, I missed to configure the JVM options in start.bat and was using the default one.

[rukshang]

I have the same error. Running AEM 6.5.X on a Windows 2016 server. The AEM instance was working fine until a reboot was performed (i am assuming AEM was not stopped properly before rebooting). Any advice? I have followed few steps identified in this blog (i.e delete Index folder, cache.lock,repo.lock) but problem is still there.

ERROR: 

HTTP ERROR 503 AuthenticationSupport service missing. Cannot authenticate request.
URI: /
STATUS: 503
MESSAGE: AuthenticationSupport service missing. Cannot authenticate request.
SERVLET: org.apache.felix.http.base.internal.dispatch.DispatcherServlet-42506205

ERROR LOG:

25.01.2022 02:19:43.188 *ERROR* [qtp1356185641-59] org.apache.sling.engine.impl.SlingHttpContext handleSecurity: AuthenticationSupport service missing. Cannot authenticate request.
25.01.2022 02:19:43.188 *ERROR* [qtp1356185641-59] org.apache.sling.engine.impl.SlingHttpContext handleSecurity: Possible reason is missing Repository service. Check AuthenticationSupport dependencies.
25.01.2022 02:19:43.330 *ERROR* [qtp1356185641-62] org.apache.sling.engine.impl.SlingHttpContext handleSecurity: AuthenticationSupport service missing. Cannot authenticate request.
25.01.2022 02:19:43.330 *ERROR* [qtp1356185641-62] org.apache.sling.engine.impl.SlingHttpContext handleSecurity: Possible reason is missing Repository service. Check AuthenticationSupport dependencies.
25.01.2022 02:19:44.704 *ERROR* [qtp1356185641-59] org.apache.sling.engine.impl.SlingHttpContext handleSecurity: AuthenticationSupport service missing. Cannot authenticate request.
25.01.2022 02:19:44.704 *ERROR* [qtp1356185641-59] org.apache.sling.engine.impl.SlingHttpContext handleSecurity: Possible reason is missing Repository service. Check AuthenticationSupport dependencies.
25.01.2022 02:19:46.406 *ERROR* [qtp1356185641-62] org.apache.sling.engine.impl.SlingHttpContext handleSecurity: AuthenticationSupport service missing. Cannot authenticate request.
25.01.2022 02:19:46.406 *ERROR* [qtp1356185641-62] org.apache.sling.engine.impl.SlingHttpContext handleSecurity: Possible reason is missing Repository service. Check AuthenticationSupport dependencies.
25.01.2022 02:19:49.450 *WARN* [sling-default-5-health-com.adobe.granite.queries.impl.hc.QueryLimitsHealthCheck] com.adobe.granite.queries.impl.hc.QueryLimitsHealthCheck Could not retrieve QueryEngineSettings MBean.

[pat-lego · Accepted solution]

I had the same issue it was caused by a custom repoinit script that was deployed under crx-quickstart/launchpad/config/org/apache/sling/jcr/repoinit that was causing the repository service to fail on start. Most likely the activate function is runnig the repoinit scripts and silently dying.

Best thing to do is remove any custom repoinit scripts and restart the instance. If you have multiple of them the just delete them one at a time, but leave the OOTB ones there.

[SaidaRaoGampala]

I had the same issue. We have installed ServicePack12 on top of AEM 6.5 jar. And when we install our Maven archetype project to AEM instance and whenever we restart our AEM instance on local environment we are seeing a 503 Authentication Support missing error. I tried all the resolutions provided in this thread, but nothing worked.

[agriselli]

This one worked for me, but I didn't have any custom-generated script. I just deleted the last one AEM generated and it started working, for all my colleagues that solved the problem too. So it looks like service pack 12 is somehow messing with that script generation.

[spotich]

Thank you so much! Removing the most recent .config file from crx-quickstart/launchpad/config/org/apache/sling/jcr/repoinit worked for me. I use AEM 6.5 on MacOS.

[stelmad]

Removing the repoinit scripts added recently fixed the issue in my case. Thanks @pat-lego 

[anuradha-ghaisas]

Thanks, I was facing similar issue while starting my local instance, none of the other solutions worked for me. On checking previous day's error log, I found the error and resolved it, my instance was up again !!

[sateeshreddy]

I had a similar issue. I have resolved this by activating all the bundles into active. in the system bundles, I saw a few are resolved. I have manually updated those as active and now it started working.