This is what I found and it worked! First of all the message, "Can not communicate with task server......" is vague and does not give a clear idea so it can be so many reasons, few of them are 1. Updating the java_home path 2. checking the jre version 3. Checking if the HF has approved license or is connected to the License Manager (its no longer the license master) 4. Change the task server port to 9995 or 1025, instead of 9998 What I Did was this: in the SPLUNK_HOME/var/log/splunk/splunkd.log  is showed some error for dbx-migration.conf so i added these lines by creating dbx-migration.conf in /etc/apps/splunk_app_db_connect/local [encryption] disabled = 0 upgrade = DONE   Then a restart of splunkd. Works super smooth ... View more