elasticsearch changing path.logs and/or path.data - fails to start - elasticsearch

Question

Here's my config
# ----------------------------------- Paths ------------------------------------
#
# Path to directory where to store the data (separate multiple locations by comma):
#
path.data: /mulelogs/elasticsearch
path.logs: /mulelogs/elasticsearch
When I restart ElasticSearch this is what I get:
elasticsearch.service - Elasticsearch
Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/elasticsearch.service; enabled; vendor preset: disabled)
Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Mon 2016-01-25 06:33:40 UTC; 9s ago
Docs: http://www.elastic.co
Process: 22213 ExecStart=/usr/share/elasticsearch/bin/elasticsearch -Des.pidfile=${PID_DIR}/elasticsearch.pid -Des.default.path.home=${ES_HOME} -Des.default.path.logs=${LOG_DIR} -Des.default.path.data=${DATA_DIR} -Des.default.path.conf=${CONF_DIR} (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
Process: 22212 ExecStartPre=/usr/share/elasticsearch/bin/elasticsearch-systemd-pre-exec (code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS)
Main PID: 22213 (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)
elasticsearch[22213]: at org.elasticsearch.common.settings.Settings$Builder.loadFromStream(Settings.java:1074)
elasticsearch[22213]: at org.elasticsearch.common.settings.Settings$Builder.loadFromPath(Settings.java:1061)
elasticsearch[22213]: at org.elasticsearch.node.internal.InternalSettingsPreparer.prepareEnvironment(InternalSettingsPreparer.java:88)
elasticsearch[22213]: at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Bootstrap.initialSettings(Bootstrap.java:217)
elasticsearch[22213]: at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Bootstrap.init(Bootstrap.java:256)
elasticsearch[22213]: at org.elasticsearch.bootstrap.Elasticsearch.main(Elasticsearch.java:35)
elasticsearch[22213]: Refer to the log for complete error details.
systemd[1]: elasticsearch.service: main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
systemd[1]: Unit elasticsearch.service entered failed state.
systemd[1]: elasticsearch.service failed.
The path is an attached volume which is accessible via /mulelogs/
drwxrwxrwx. 4 root root 4096 Jan 25 05:11 .
dr-xr-xr-x. 18 root root 4096 Jan 25 06:24 ..
drwxrwxrwx. 4 elasticsearch elasticsearch 4096 Jan 25 05:21 elasticsearch
drwxrwxrwx. 2 root root 16384 Jan 20 01:20 lost+found
I tried chown and chmod just to see if the permission is the problem, but it still didn't work.
How do I fix this?
Thanks in ad
Notes:
OS: CentOS 7
ElasticSearch : 2.1
I have installed ELK following this steps:
https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-install-elasticsearch-logstash-and-kibana-elk-stack-on-centos-7

Answer 1

try changing the paths
path.data: /mulelogs/elasticsearch
path.logs: /mulelogs/elasticsearch
to absolute

Answer 2

I had a fresh install and had the same error.
Check if you have a folder in your path.data directory with the name of your cluster. If yes, try to delete it (if possible and you don't loose data).
After deleting this and restarting the service it went ok (another folder called nodes was created)

Answer 3

change mode to 777 for new lib and log directories and files.
check the log file, if it shows error message like:
java.lang.IllegalStateException: detected index data in
default.path.data [/var/lib/elasticsearch] where there should not be
any; check the logs for details
as the above error, you have to delete the nodes directory in old lib folder. (Backup first, index data will be gone.)