Debian: Jenkins not starting as a daemon: Container startup failed

Question

For some reason my Jenkins server does not start anymore. I tried apt-get remove, apt-get purge and apt-get install to solve the issue but it didn't work.

I can't reach Jenkins on its Web URL after starting the server.

When i try to start Jenkins i get:

 sudo /etc/init.d/jenkins start
 [ ok ] Starting Jenkins Continuous Integration Server: jenkins.

The log file (/var/log/jenkins/jenkins.log) is empty.

But jenkins is still not reachable.

When I start the java command directly as jenkins user i get an exception:

/usr/share/jenkins$ java -jar /usr/share/jenkins/jenkins.war
Running from: /usr/share/jenkins/jenkins.war
webroot: $user.home/.jenkins
Nov 19, 2016 10:01:43 AM Main deleteWinstoneTempContents
WARNING: Failed to delete the temporary Winstone file /tmp/winstone/jenkins.war
Nov 19, 2016 10:01:43 AM org.eclipse.jetty.util.log.JavaUtilLog info
INFO: Logging initialized @1599ms
Nov 19, 2016 10:01:43 AM winstone.Logger logInternal
INFO: Beginning extraction from war file
Nov 19, 2016 10:01:44 AM winstone.Logger logInternal
INFO: Winstone shutdown successfully
Nov 19, 2016 10:01:44 AM winstone.Logger logInternal
SEVERE: Container startup failed
java.io.FileNotFoundException: /var/lib/jenkins/.jenkins/war/META-INF/MANIFEST.MF (No such file or directory)
        at java.io.FileOutputStream.open(Native Method)
        at java.io.FileOutputStream.<init>(FileOutputStream.java:221)
        at java.io.FileOutputStream.<init>(FileOutputStream.java:171)
        at winstone.HostConfiguration.getWebRoot(HostConfiguration.java:280)
        at winstone.HostConfiguration.<init>(HostConfiguration.java:83)
        at winstone.HostGroup.initHost(HostGroup.java:66)
        at winstone.HostGroup.<init>(HostGroup.java:45)
        at winstone.Launcher.<init>(Launcher.java:143)
        at winstone.Launcher.main(Launcher.java:352)
        at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
        at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:57)
        at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:43)
        at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:606)
        at Main._main(Main.java:264)
        at Main.main(Main.java:112)