XRAY: Cluster join: Failed resolving join key: Corrupted join key: encoding/hex: invalid byte: U+0007

After installing JFrog Xray, if it is observed that Xray doesn't start and provides an error about joinkey and the log gives us “Cluster join: Failed resolving join key: Corrupted join key: encoding/hex: invalid byte: U+0007”.

Example error snippet:

api/v1/system/ping": dial tcp 127.0.0.1:8046: connect: connection refused
Cluster join: Failed joining the cluster; Error: Cluster join: Service registry ping failed; context deadline exceeded. last error: Error while trying to connect to local router at address 'http://localhost:8046/access': Get "http://localhost:8046/access/api/v1/system/ping": dial tcp 127.0.0.1:8046: connect: connection refused

“Cluster join: Failed resolving join key: Corrupted join key: encoding/hex: invalid byte: U+0007”

The reason behind this issue:

The join.key added in the system.yaml of JFrog Xray seems to be invalid or corrupted.

How to overcome this behavior:

It is recommended to navigate to JFrog platform UI-> Admin Tab->User Management -> Settings -> copy the join.key as shown in below snippet.

User-added image

Next, place the join key copied from the Artifactory UI to the system.yaml of Xray as shown below. And then, perform the restart to Xray.

shared:
  security:
    joinKey: "<Your joinKey>"