Adobe Connect 12.10 Service Does Not Start on Windows Server 2016

After upgrading to Adobe Connect 12.10 in an On-Premise environment, administrators may find that the Connect Service fails to start, even though the upgrade process completes successfully.

This behavior has been observed in environments running Windows Server 2016.

---

Symptoms

• Upgrade to 12.10 completes without errors
• Connect Service fails to start
• Only ConnectProServices.log is generated

The log file may contain entries similar to:

2026/02/18 09:15:27 | FATAL  | jvm 1    | [0.016s][error][gc] Failed to lookup symbol: VirtualAlloc2

2026/02/18 09:15:27 | FATAL  | jvm 1    | Error occurred during initialization of VM

2026/02/18 09:15:27 | FATAL  | jvm 1    | ZGC requires Windows version 1803 or later

2026/02/18 09:15:27 | FATAL  | wrapper  | --------------------------------------------------------------------

2026/02/18 09:15:27 | FATAL  | wrapper  | The Java command line is invalid.

2026/02/18 09:15:27 | FATAL  | wrapper  | 

2026/02/18 09:15:27 | FATAL  | wrapper  | Usually this is caused by an option that does not exist or is not

2026/02/18 09:15:27 | FATAL  | wrapper  |   valid for the Java version being used (java version "21.0.3").

2026/02/18 09:15:27 | FATAL  | wrapper  | Please check the values of the wrapper.java.additional.<n>

2026/02/18 09:15:27 | FATAL  | wrapper  |   properties against the above JVM output.

---

Cause

Adobe Connect 12.10 runs on Java 21, where the Z Garbage Collector (ZGC) is enabled by default.

ZGC requires Windows version 1803 or later. Windows Server 2016 does not support the required system API (VirtualAlloc2), which prevents the Java Virtual Machine from initializing and causes the service startup failure.

---

Workaround

You can resolve this by switching the garbage collector from ZGC to G1GC, which is compatible with Windows Server 2016.

Steps

1. Navigate to: Connect\12.7.0\appserv\conf\ConnectProSvc.conf
2. Locate: wrapper.java.additional.100=-XX:+UseZGC
3. Change it to: wrapper.java.additional.100=-XX:+UseG1GC
4. Save the file.
5. Restart the Adobe Connect Service.

The service should now start successfully.

---

Additional Information

• This applies to Windows Server 2016 deployments.
• Windows Server 2019 and later versions are not affected.
• This workaround does not impact application data or configuration.

If the service continues to fail after applying this change, contact Adobe Connect Support and include your ConnectProServices.log file.