I'm running Eclipse Java EE (Mars) / Websphere Liberty (8.5.5.8) / Websphere Liberty Developer Tools Plugin (8.5.5) on IBM SDK 8.0 64 Bits for Windows.
When launching the server at localhost, the server starts normally and the console writes "server is ready" but the Eclipse launch delegate still tells the server status is "starting". After timeout period, Eclipse says the server was unable to start and kills it.
I know this is a recurring issue : i change connection settings in eclipse to direct, add localhost to etc/host, add -Djava.net.preferIPv4Stack=true to eclipse.ini but couldn't resolve it ...
There are some known limitations if you have changed the logging settings, see the Developer Tools known issues and restrictions.
The tools look for this exact message id in the eclipse Console view: CWWKF0011I. If that message id is not detected the tools think the server did not start. Do you see that message id in the eclipse Console view?