Solution for Unable To Start Admin Server with Error BEA-000386

Symptoms

After an outage or unexpected physical machine shutdown weblogic does not start.
If you see this error when admin server is starting, or the following exception is thrown:
<Critical><BEA-000386> <Server subsystem failed. Reason: java.lang.AssertionError: java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
java.lang.AssertionError: java.lang.reflect.InvocationTargetException
at weblogic.descriptor.DescriptorManager$SecurityServiceImpl$SecurityProxy._invokeServiceMethod(DescriptorManager.java:175)
…
Changes
No changes, in particuluar. Possibly a physical machine shutdown or outage.

Reason:

The file SerializedSystemIni.dat has become corrupted. This file contains the hash to decrypt the encrypted credential values if the config.xml. So, the Admin Server will not start because is not able to decrypt the credential and perform authentication properly.

ReSolution:

The corrupted hash values must be replaced.

1. Edit all the encrypted values in the config.xml to plain text.
Example:
Before:
<credential-encrypted>{AES}b3I7UhWtRyj4DuKMIDVtW4Ln2nzH+HiYRhhQw1H2qpU0qJMOaDlK8iFZ+LvlJu+i
Zs6pptFJgWz8ryyudL1Zyvf00Rg11z9Iib7hoDC8covMFuig8wx7iOGK88zeKH7U</credential-encrypted>
After:
<credential-encrypted>MyCredentialInPlainText</credential-encrypted>
2. Restart the Admin Server.
After restart the Admin Server, the credentials will be encrypted again and the AdminServer will start.