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Published Jul. 2, 2025

java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to install analysis-icu plugin error when starting Liferay using an embedded Elasticsearch

Written By

Jorge Diaz

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Issue

  • The error java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to install analysis-icu plugin error is produced when starting Liferay using an embedded Elasticsearch
  • This error prevents the embedded Elasticsearch to start correctly.
2022-01-21 13:05:06.079 WARN  [Elasticsearch Initialization Thread][EmbeddedElasticsearchConnection:297] Liferay is configured to use embedded Elasticsearch as its search engine. Do NOT use embedded Elasticsearch in production. Embedded Elasticsearch is useful for development and demonstration purposes. Refer to the documentation for details on the limitations of embedded Elasticsearch. Remote Elasticsearch connections can be configured in the Control Panel.
2022-01-21 13:05:06.676 ERROR [main][ElasticsearchEngineConfigurator:93] bundle com.liferay.portal.search.elasticsearch6.impl:3.0.89.hotfix-6159-7210 (107)[com.liferay.portal.search.elasticsearch6.internal.ElasticsearchEngineConfigurator(112)] : The activate method has thrown an exception
java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to initialize Elasticsearch engine
       at com.liferay.portal.search.elasticsearch6.internal.ElasticsearchEngineConfigurator.initialize(ElasticsearchEngineConfigurator.java:130)
       at com.liferay.portal.search.elasticsearch6.internal.ElasticsearchEngineConfigurator.activate(ElasticsearchEngineConfigurator.java:65)
       at java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
       at java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
       at java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
       at java.base/java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:566)
[...]
       at com.liferay.portal.bootstrap.ModuleFrameworkImpl._registerService(ModuleFrameworkImpl.java:1571)
       at com.liferay.portal.bootstrap.ModuleFrameworkImpl.lambda$_registerApplicationContext$4(ModuleFrameworkImpl.java:1524)
       at java.base/java.util.Iterator.forEachRemaining(Iterator.java:133)
       at com.liferay.portal.bootstrap.ModuleFrameworkImpl._registerApplicationContext(ModuleFrameworkImpl.java:1509)
       at com.liferay.portal.bootstrap.ModuleFrameworkImpl.registerContext(ModuleFrameworkImpl.java:324)
       at com.liferay.portal.module.framework.ModuleFrameworkUtilAdapter.registerContext(ModuleFrameworkUtilAdapter.java:72)
       at com.liferay.portal.util.InitUtil.registerContext(InitUtil.java:290)
       at com.liferay.portal.tools.DBUpgrader.main(DBUpgrader.java:125)
       at java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
       at java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:62)
       at java.base/jdk.internal.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
       at java.base/java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:566)
       at com.liferay.portal.tools.db.upgrade.client.DBUpgraderLauncher.main(DBUpgraderLauncher.java:55)
Caused by: java.util.concurrent.ExecutionException: java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to install analysis-icu plugin
       at java.base/java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.report(FutureTask.java:122)
       at java.base/java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.get(FutureTask.java:191)
       at com.liferay.portal.search.elasticsearch6.internal.ElasticsearchEngineConfigurator.initialize(ElasticsearchEngineConfigurator.java:127)
       ... 126 more
Caused by: java.lang.RuntimeException: Unable to install analysis-icu plugin
       at com.liferay.portal.search.elasticsearch6.internal.connection.EmbeddedElasticsearchConnection.installPlugin(EmbeddedElasticsearchConnection.java:384)
       at com.liferay.portal.search.elasticsearch6.internal.connection.EmbeddedElasticsearchConnection.installPlugins(EmbeddedElasticsearchConnection.java:400)
       at com.liferay.portal.search.elasticsearch6.internal.connection.EmbeddedElasticsearchConnection.createNode(EmbeddedElasticsearchConnection.java:355)
       at com.liferay.portal.search.elasticsearch6.internal.connection.EmbeddedElasticsearchConnection.createClient(EmbeddedElasticsearchConnection.java:308)
       at com.liferay.portal.search.elasticsearch6.internal.connection.BaseElasticsearchConnection.connect(BaseElasticsearchConnection.java:65)
       at com.liferay.portal.search.elasticsearch6.internal.connection.ElasticsearchConnectionManager.connect(ElasticsearchConnectionManager.java:71)
       at com.liferay.portal.search.elasticsearch6.internal.ElasticsearchEngineConfigurator.lambda$initialize$0(ElasticsearchEngineConfigurator.java:114)
       at java.base/java.util.concurrent.FutureTask.run(FutureTask.java:264)
       at java.base/java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:834)
Caused by: java.nio.file.FileSystemException: /opt/liferay-dxp-7.2.10.1-sp1/data/elasticsearch6/plugins/analysis-icu/analysis-icu-client-6.8.15.jar: Operation not permitted
       at java.base/sun.nio.fs.UnixException.translateToIOException(UnixException.java:100)
       at java.base/sun.nio.fs.UnixException.rethrowAsIOException(UnixException.java:111)
       at java.base/sun.nio.fs.UnixException.rethrowAsIOException(UnixException.java:116)
       at java.base/sun.nio.fs.UnixFileAttributeViews$Posix.setMode(UnixFileAttributeViews.java:254)
       at java.base/sun.nio.fs.UnixFileAttributeViews$Posix.setPermissions(UnixFileAttributeViews.java:276)
       at java.base/java.nio.file.Files.setPosixFilePermissions(Files.java:2079)
       at org.elasticsearch.plugins.InstallPluginCommand.setFileAttributes(InstallPluginCommand.java:945)
       at org.elasticsearch.plugins.InstallPluginCommand.access$000(InstallPluginCommand.java:123)
       at org.elasticsearch.plugins.InstallPluginCommand$1.visitFile(InstallPluginCommand.java:855)
       at org.elasticsearch.plugins.InstallPluginCommand$1.visitFile(InstallPluginCommand.java:846)
       at java.base/java.nio.file.Files.walkFileTree(Files.java:2724)
       at java.base/java.nio.file.Files.walkFileTree(Files.java:2796)
       at org.elasticsearch.plugins.InstallPluginCommand.movePlugin(InstallPluginCommand.java:846)
       at org.elasticsearch.plugins.InstallPluginCommand.installPlugin(InstallPluginCommand.java:822)
       at org.elasticsearch.plugins.InstallPluginCommand.install(InstallPluginCommand.java:786)
       at org.elasticsearch.plugins.InstallPluginCommand.execute(InstallPluginCommand.java:232)
       at org.elasticsearch.plugins.InstallPluginCommand.execute(InstallPluginCommand.java:217)
       at org.elasticsearch.cli.EnvironmentAwareCommand.execute(EnvironmentAwareCommand.java:86)
       at org.elasticsearch.cli.Command.mainWithoutErrorHandling(Command.java:124)
       at org.elasticsearch.cli.MultiCommand.execute(MultiCommand.java:77)
       at org.elasticsearch.cli.Command.mainWithoutErrorHandling(Command.java:124)
       at org.elasticsearch.cli.Command.main(Command.java:90)
       at com.liferay.portal.search.elasticsearch6.internal.connection.PluginManagerImpl.main(PluginManagerImpl.java:136)
       at com.liferay.portal.search.elasticsearch6.internal.connection.PluginManagerImpl.lambda$install$0(PluginManagerImpl.java:77)
       at com.liferay.portal.search.elasticsearch6.internal.connection.PluginJarConflictCheckSuppression.lambda$execute$0(PluginJarConflictCheckSuppression.java:27)
       at com.liferay.portal.search.elasticsearch6.internal.connection.PluginJarConflictCheckSuppression.execute(PluginJarConflictCheckSuppression.java:39)
       at com.liferay.portal.search.elasticsearch6.internal.connection.PluginJarConflictCheckSuppression.execute(PluginJarConflictCheckSuppression.java:25)
       at com.liferay.portal.search.elasticsearch6.internal.connection.PluginManagerImpl.install(PluginManagerImpl.java:74)
       at com.liferay.portal.search.elasticsearch6.internal.connection.EmbeddedElasticsearchPluginManager.downloadAndExtract(EmbeddedElasticsearchPluginManager.java:96)
       at com.liferay.portal.search.elasticsearch6.internal.connection.EmbeddedElasticsearchPluginManager.install(EmbeddedElasticsearchPluginManager.java:56)
       at com.liferay.portal.search.elasticsearch6.internal.connection.EmbeddedElasticsearchConnection.installPlugin(EmbeddedElasticsearchConnection.java:381)
       ... 8 more

 

Environment

  • DXP 7.2

Resolution

The error is happening in the embedded Elasticsearch when preparing the [LIFERAY_HOME]/data/elasticsearch6/plugin directory with the different Elasticsearch modules

At this moment:
  1. Liferay extracts the Elasticsearch plugins from the Elasticsearch LPKG file
  2. Liferay copies them to a temporary folder and for each one.
  3. Liferay executes the  org.elasticsearch.plugins.InstallPluginCommand command from Elasticsearch code to move the plugins to their final location and install them.
The  Caused by: java.nio.file.FileSystemException: [LIFERAY_HOME]/data/elasticsearch6/plugins/analysis-icu/analysis-icu-client-6.8.15.jar: Operation not permitted error is thrown when the embedded Elasticsearch cannot access or modify the JAR file permissions.

 

To solve the problem, check that:

  • The [LIFERAY_HOME]/data/elasticsearch6 and [LIFERAY_HOME]/data/elasticearch6/plugin folders are owned by the user used to execute the Liferay server and it has enough permissions to create subfolders and files
  • The  [LIFERAY_HOME]/data/elasticsearch6 folder is a path to a local file system, i. e: it is not a mounted NFS or similar network drive.
  • The touch and chmod commands work correctly in this folder: for example, these lines should work:
    • touch [LIFERAY_HOME]/data/elasticearch6/plugin/dummy
    • chmod 644 [LIFERAY_HOME]/data/elasticearch6/plugin/dummy
  • If these lines don't work, there would be a filesystem problem at the operating system level.
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