Solution: FileMaker Server will not start after Windows Server crash or upgrade
SHORT ANSWER: Try moving the file ‘ServerCustom.pem’ from the “C:\Program Files\FileMaker\FileMaker Server\CStore” directory to the desktop, and then try starting the FileMaker Server. If it works, you’ll need to download and install a new SSL certificate, but other than that you should be fine. If it still doesn’t work, put it back into “C:\Program Files\FileMaker\FileMaker Server\CStore”, you have a different problem.
The long answer: Just had an interesting issue with a client’s Windows 2012 server running FileMaker Server 16. An electrician had come in and done some work without telling the IT staff, and turned power out for longer than the UPS could handle, resulting in a server crash. When the server came back up, starting the FileMaker Server service from Server Manager gave a nondescript error message that simply said the server couldn’t start.
I opened Windows’s Powershell (command shell) app and type “eventvwr” to open the “Event Viewer”, then drilled down to find the Application even log. Scrolling through this, I found the following message logged by FileMaker Server: “FileMaker Server Helper quitting! Network initialization error. (CORBA::INITIALIZE)”. Googling this error message led me to the helpful page at https://community.filemaker.com/thread/179629, which suggested the above fix of moving the file ‘ServerCustom.pem’ from the “C:\Program Files\FileMaker\FileMaker Server\CStore” directory to the desktop. After this, the FileMaker Server service started just fine. I re-keyed and re-installed the SSL certificate and the client was up and running again just before.
