"log4j.properties was unexpected at this time" while trying to start Zookeeper in windows

Question

I am using kafka stream download from Confluent ( http://www.confluent.io/product/kafka-streams/ ).

I am following the instructions to run Zookeeper and Kafka on Windows. But while I try to start ZooKeeper using the command D:\\Softwares\\confluent-3.0.1\\bin\\windows>zookeeper-server-start.bat ./etc/kafka/zookeeper.properties , I get the error

D:\\Softwares\\confluent-3.0.1\\bin\\windows../../etc/kafka/log4j.properties was unexpected at this time.

If I check the "zookeeper-server-start.bat" file the commands look ok and is like below.There also exists log4j.properties file under directory confluent-3.0.1\\etc\\kafka

---

IF [%1] EQU [] (
    echo USAGE: %0 zookeeper.properties
    EXIT /B 1
  )


SetLocal
IF ["%KAFKA_LOG4J_OPTS%"] EQU [""] (
    if exists %~dp0../../etc/kafka/log4j.properties (
        set KAFKA_LOG4J_OPTS=-Dlog4j.configuration=file:%~dp0../../etc/kafka/log4j.properties
    ) else (
        set KAFKA_LOG4J_OPTS=-Dlog4j.configuration=file:%~dp0../../config/log4j.properties
    )
)

IF ["%KAFKA_HEAP_OPTS%"] EQU [""] (
    set KAFKA_HEAP_OPTS=-Xmx512M -Xms512M
)

%~dp0kafka-run-class.bat org.apache.zookeeper.server.quorum.QuorumPeerMain %*
EndLocal

---

Answer 1

I was getting same error when I placed kafka downloaded distribution in C:\\Program Files (x86) . Moving kafka downloaded distribution to some other drive other then c drive worked for me.

Find below working commands: D:\\kafka_2.12-2.2.0\\kafka_2.12-2.2.0>bin\\windows\\zookeeper-server-start.bat config/zookeeper.properties

Kafka was downloaded from it's official site:

https://kafka.apache.org/quickstart

Answer 2

https://github.com/renukaradhya/confluentplatform

This above GIT repo contains modified windows batch scripts.

Answer 3

You probably won't need this, but maybe someone else will have the same problem and this will help.

What I've done to fix this was changing my console from Cmder to a normal windows cmd. Don't know how, but somehow it worked for me.