Product:
Cognos Lifecycle manager
Microsoft Windows 2008 R2

Symptom:
Error when try to create a new project in Lifecycle Manager

Error message:
An error has occured in Lifecycle Manager.
Could not create a new project

HTTP Status 500 –

Cause:
Check that the tomcat service have started. In the DOS window there can be text like filenotfoundexception. … \logs\catalina,2014-02-25.log (the system cannot find the path…. show that the tomcat service never started correct.
If you check the logs folder under tomcat directory, this folder is empty. The Windows server is looked down – the normal user do not have rights to files under c:\program files folders.

Solution:
Uninstall Lifecycle Manager.
Install it to a different folder on your server – e.g. d:\ibm\cognos\Lifecyclemanager\
Where the user have more access rights and can create temp files.

Then start Lifecycle manager again and surf to http://localhost:4797/LifecycleManager

More Information
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/data/library/cognos/upgrade_and_migration/bi/page579.html