SOLVED: Jellyfin unable to start

[Mower5966]

I was running Jellyfin 10.9.6 on Windows. Yesterday, when restarting my PC after a Windows Update, I was stuck at the Windows login screen as the loading icon keeps spinning after I entered my password. I waited for a while before rebooting my PC by pressing the restart button on my PC casing, but it's still the same - I was stuck at the log in screen after entering my password. I left my PC on the stuck login screen and went to work.

When I'm back, I noticed my PC is no longer stuck at the login screen and I can use it normally. Fast forward to the next day, I noticed that Jellyfin wasn't running, which is unexpected because it should autostart when the PC boots up. I tried to manually start it but was unable to. The following error can be found in the log:

Code:

[2024-08-16 09:14:11.910 +08:00] [INF] [1] Main: Jellyfin version: "10.9.9"
[2024-08-16 09:14:11.922 +08:00] [INF] [1] Main: Environment Variables: ["[JELLYFIN_LOG_DIR, C:\ProgramData\Jellyfin\Server\log]"]
[2024-08-16 09:14:11.925 +08:00] [INF] [1] Main: Arguments: ["C:\Program Files\Jellyfin\Server\jellyfin.dll", "--datadir", "C:\ProgramData\Jellyfin\Server"]
[2024-08-16 09:14:11.926 +08:00] [INF] [1] Main: Operating system: "Microsoft Windows 10.0.19045"
[2024-08-16 09:14:11.927 +08:00] [INF] [1] Main: Architecture: X64
[2024-08-16 09:14:11.927 +08:00] [INF] [1] Main: 64-Bit Process: True
[2024-08-16 09:14:11.928 +08:00] [INF] [1] Main: User Interactive: True
[2024-08-16 09:14:11.929 +08:00] [INF] [1] Main: Processor count: 16
[2024-08-16 09:14:11.929 +08:00] [INF] [1] Main: Program data path: "C:\ProgramData\Jellyfin\Server"
[2024-08-16 09:14:11.930 +08:00] [INF] [1] Main: Log directory path: "C:\ProgramData\Jellyfin\Server\log"
[2024-08-16 09:14:11.931 +08:00] [INF] [1] Main: Config directory path: "C:\ProgramData\Jellyfin\Server\config"
[2024-08-16 09:14:11.931 +08:00] [INF] [1] Main: Cache path: "C:\ProgramData\Jellyfin\Server\cache"
[2024-08-16 09:14:11.932 +08:00] [INF] [1] Main: Web resources path: "C:\Program Files\Jellyfin\Server\jellyfin-web"
[2024-08-16 09:14:11.933 +08:00] [INF] [1] Main: Application directory: "C:\Program Files\Jellyfin\Server\"
[2024-08-16 09:14:11.954 +08:00] [FTL] [1] Main: Unhandled Exception
System.InvalidOperationException: There is an error in XML document (1, 1).
---> System.Xml.XmlException: '.', hexadecimal value 0x00, is an invalid character. Line 1, position 1.
  at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.Throw(Exception e)
  at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.Throw(String res, String[] args)
  at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.ParseRootLevelWhitespace()
  at System.Xml.XmlTextReaderImpl.ParseDocumentContent()
  at System.Xml.XmlReader.MoveToContent()
  at Microsoft.Xml.Serialization.GeneratedAssembly.XmlSerializationReaderMigrationOptions.Read4_MigrationOptions()
  at System.RuntimeMethodHandle.InvokeMethod(Object target, Void** arguments, Signature sig, Boolean isConstructor)
  at System.Reflection.MethodBaseInvoker.InvokeWithNoArgs(Object obj, BindingFlags invokeAttr)
  --- End of inner exception stack trace ---
  at System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer.Deserialize(XmlReader xmlReader, String encodingStyle, XmlDeserializationEvents events)
  at System.Xml.Serialization.XmlSerializer.Deserialize(XmlReader xmlReader)
  at Emby.Server.Implementations.Serialization.MyXmlSerializer.DeserializeFromStream(Type type, Stream stream)
  at Emby.Server.Implementations.Serialization.MyXmlSerializer.DeserializeFromFile(Type type, String file)
  at Jellyfin.Server.Migrations.MigrationRunner.RunPreStartup(ServerApplicationPaths appPaths, ILoggerFactory loggerFactory)
  at Jellyfin.Server.Program.StartApp(StartupOptions options)
  at Jellyfin.Server.Program.<Main>(String[] args)

I restarted my PC again, but Jellyfin is still unable to start and the same error is produced. Then I upgraded Jellyfin to 10.9.9 but it's still the same.

Did my force restart corrupted some file used by Jellyfin? What can I do to fix it?