SplunkWeb UI access fails with an 'unexpected condition'

Applicability

Splunk Enterprise

Description

SplunkWeb UI access fails with the following message
 

"The server encountered an unexpected condition which prevented it from fulfilling the 
request. Click here to return to Splunk homepage"

Investigation

The following error is reported in $SPLUNK_HOME/var/log/splunk/web_service.log
 

2019-09-10 07:25:58,388 INFO [5d7741f661397e0ba470] error:323 - HEAD /favicon.ico 127.0.0.1 
8065
2019-09-10 07:25:58,390 INFO [5d7741f661397e0ba470] error:324 - 500 Internal Server Error 
The server encountered an unexpected condition which prevented it from fulfilling the request.
2019-09-10 07:25:58,390 ERROR [5d7741f661397e0ba470] error:325 - Traceback (most recent call last):
File "S:\Program Files\Splunk\Python-2.7\Lib\site-packages\cherrypy\_cprequest.py", line 598, in respond
self.hooks.run('before_request_body')
File "S:\Program Files\Splunk\Python-2.7\Lib\site-packages\cherrypy\_cprequest.py", line 98, in run
hook()
File "S:\Program Files\Splunk\Python-2.7\Lib\site-packages\cherrypy\_cprequest.py", line 58, in __call__
return self.callback(**self.kwargs)
File "S:\Program Files\Splunk\Python-2.7\Lib\site-packages\cherrypy\lib\sessions.py", line 651, in init
timeout=timeout, domain=domain, secure=secure, httponly=httponly)
File "S:\Program Files\Splunk\Python-2.7\Lib\site-packages\cherrypy\lib\sessions.py", line 688, in set_response_cookie
cookie[name]['expires'] = http.HTTPDate(time.time() + timeout)
TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for +: 'float' and 'str'

Verify whether a string has been set as one of the timeout values in web.conf

$SPLUNK_HOME/bin/splunk btool web list settings

[settings]
busyKeepAliveIdleTimeout = 12
keepAliveIdleTimeout = 7200
response.timeout = 7200
splunkdConnectionTimeout = 30
tools.sessions.timeout = 60
ui_inactivity_timeout = 60

The above are the default settings, though if any have been changed to a string (for example, tools.sessions.timeout = 1h) then revert to default and verify if the issue persists.

Resolution

If all timeout values are valid a potential workaround is to modify sessions.py to explicitly set max-age.
 

$SPLUNK_HOME/lib/python2.7/site-packages/cherrypy/lib/sessions.py

Change the following:
 

# We'd like to use the "max-age" param as indicated in
    # http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2109.html but IE doesn't
    # save it to disk and the session is lost if people close
    # the browser. So we have to use the old "expires" ... sigh ...
##    cookie[name]['max-age'] = timeout * 60
    if timeout:
        #cookie[name]['expires'] = http.HTTPDate(time.time() + (timeout * 60))
        # Replace Cherrypy's version of this so that cookies alwasy last for
        # 24 hours by default - Setting them to 1 hour causes problems for IE
        # users who's clocks are off from the server
        timeout = timeout * 60 # convert to seconds
        if timeout < 86400:
            timeout = 86400 # Cookies last at least 24 hours
        try:
                cookie[name]['expires'] = http.HTTPDate(time.time() + timeout)
        except TypeError:
                raise AssertionError("HTTPDate error, timeout=%s not set." % timeout)

To this:
 

# http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2109.html but IE doesn't 
# save it to disk and the session is lost if people close 
# the browser. So we have to use the old "expires" ... sigh ... 
## cookie[name]['max-age'] = timeout * 60 
cookie[name]['max-age'] = 86400
###   if timeout:
        #cookie[name]['expires'] = http.HTTPDate(time.time() + (timeout * 60))
        # Replace Cherrypy's version of this so that cookies alwasy last for
        # 24 hours by default - Setting them to 1 hour causes problems for IE
        # users who's clocks are off from the server
###       timeout = timeout * 60 # convert to seconds
###       if timeout < 86400:
###           timeout = 86400 # Cookies last at least 24 hours
###       cookie[name]['expires'] = http.HTTPDate(time.time() + timeout)

Then restart Splunk

Revision History

Revision	Publish Date	Comments
1.0	28-Sep-2026	Initial Release