An example of what exception is received at the application level when an incorrect host has been specified in the protocol properties:

org.jgroups.ChannelException: unable to setup the protocol stack
at org.jgroups.JChannel.init(JChannel.java:1403)
at org.jgroups.JChannel.<init>(JChannel.java:279)
at org.jgroups.JChannelFactory.createChannel(JChannelFactory.java:308)
at com.ubs.apm.control.service.nameservice.jgroup.JGroupNameService.init(JGroupNameService.java:82)
at com.ubs.apm.control.service.nameservice.jgroup.JGroupTest.testPropertiesLoad(JGroupTest.java:17)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
at com.intellij.rt.execution.junit.JUnitStarter.main(JUnitStarter.java:40)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke0(Native Method)
at sun.reflect.NativeMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(NativeMethodAccessorImpl.java:39)
at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
at com.intellij.rt.execution.application.AppMain.main(AppMain.java:90)
Caused by: java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: the following properties in TCPPING are not recognized:

at org.jgroups.stack.Configurator$ProtocolConfiguration.createLayer(Configurator.java:700)
at org.jgroups.stack.Configurator$ProtocolConfiguration.access$000(Configurator.java:595)
at org.jgroups.stack.Configurator.createProtocols(Configurator.java:375)
at org.jgroups.stack.Configurator.setupProtocolStack(Configurator.java:58)
at org.jgroups.stack.ProtocolStack.setup(ProtocolStack.java:205)
at org.jgroups.JChannel.init(JChannel.java:1400)
... 27 more

either you have to look into the code or enable correct logging level to see real cause. What would be useful is to see the actual cause of exception at the application layer.