Awesome, that also cleared it up for me.  Thanks for the workaround Tom.

Still the same result, just sits there and times/spins.

edit - on a whim I even went and install Oracle Java 8 and set it as default, still same results.

Nope, as I mentioned above the last thing I see in the console is what is mirrored in the logs -- the version check on startup.

20170510 16:26:00 [main] INFO  com.ubooquity.Ubooquity - Running with the following parameters - headless: true, libraryport: -1, adminport: -1, remoteadmin: true, host: null, debug: false, execdir: /home/keith/Library
20170510 16:26:00 [main] INFO  com.ubooquity.Ubooquity - #############################
20170510 16:26:00 [main] INFO  com.ubooquity.Ubooquity - #     Starting Ubooquity    #
20170510 16:26:00 [main] INFO  com.ubooquity.Ubooquity - #############################
20170510 16:26:00 [main] INFO  com.ubooquity.Ubooquity - Java version: 9-ea
20170510 16:26:00 [main] INFO  com.ubooquity.Ubooquity - Java vendor: Oracle Corporation
20170510 16:26:00 [main] INFO  com.ubooquity.Ubooquity - Max heap size available: 239 MB
20170510 16:26:00 [main] INFO  com.ubooquity.Ubooquity - OS name: Linux
20170510 16:26:00 [main] INFO  com.ubooquity.Ubooquity - OS version: 4.10.0-19-generic
20170510 16:26:00 [main] INFO  com.ubooquity.Ubooquity - OS architecture: amd64
20170510 16:26:00 [main] INFO  com.ubooquity.Ubooquity - Loading local version info
20170510 16:26:00 [main] INFO  com.ubooquity.Ubooquity - Ubooquity 2.0.2 built on 2017-04-24 at 20:52
20170510 16:26:00 [main] INFO  com.ubooquity.Ubooquity - Creating application folders
20170510 16:26:00 [main] INFO  com.ubooquity.Ubooquity - Loading preferences
20170510 16:26:01 [main] INFO  org.eclipse.jetty.util.log - Logging initialized @2941ms to org.eclipse.jetty.util.log.Slf4jLog
20170510 16:26:01 [main] INFO  com.ubooquity.b - Starting internal server...
20170510 16:26:01 [main] INFO  com.ubooquity.b - Reverse proxy prefix is not activated
20170510 16:26:01 [Scanner thread] INFO  com.ubooquity.data.feeder.a - Scanning books directories
20170510 16:26:01 [Scanner thread] INFO  com.ubooquity.data.feeder.a - Finished scanning books directories, populating folders content cache
20170510 16:26:01 [Scanner thread] INFO  com.ubooquity.data.feeder.a - Books folder content cache populated
20170510 16:26:01 [Scanner thread] INFO  com.ubooquity.data.feeder.a - Scanning comics directories
20170510 16:26:01 [Scanner thread] INFO  com.ubooquity.data.feeder.a - Finished scanning comics directories, populating folders content cache
20170510 16:26:01 [Scanner thread] INFO  com.ubooquity.data.feeder.a - Comics folder content cache populated
20170510 16:26:01 [Scanner thread] INFO  com.ubooquity.data.feeder.a - Comics statistics: [total: 0, added or updated: 0, removed: 0]
20170510 16:26:01 [Scanner thread] INFO  com.ubooquity.data.feeder.a - Books statistics: [total: 0, added or updated: 0, removed: 0]
20170510 16:26:01 [main] INFO  org.eclipse.jetty.server.Server - jetty-9.4.0.v20161208
20170510 16:26:01 [main] INFO  o.e.j.server.handler.ContextHandler - Started o.e.j.s.h.ContextHandler@55f3c410{/,null,AVAILABLE,@admin}
20170510 16:26:01 [main] INFO  o.e.j.server.handler.ContextHandler - Started o.e.j.s.h.ContextHandler@11acdc30{/,null,AVAILABLE,@library}
20170510 16:26:01 [main] INFO  o.e.jetty.server.AbstractConnector - Started library@5b198648{HTTP/1.1,[http/1.1]}{0.0.0.0:2202}
20170510 16:26:01 [main] INFO  o.e.jetty.server.AbstractConnector - Started admin@718ff66b{HTTP/1.1,[http/1.1]}{0.0.0.0:2203}
20170510 16:26:01 [main] INFO  org.eclipse.jetty.server.Server - Started @3213ms
20170510 16:26:01 [main] INFO  com.ubooquity.b - Internal server started. Listening on port 2202 (library) and 2203 (admin)
Tyep Q then ENTER to exit
20170510 16:26:02 [Timer-0] INFO  com.ubooquity.Ubooquity - Checking latest available Ubooquity version from website
20170510 16:26:03 [Timer-0] INFO  com.ubooquity.Ubooquity - Latest version available: 1.10.1 - Current version: 2.0.2

I've also now installed Oracle JRE9 on a Debian 8 VM I had handy, same issue and same results.

I make a folder called "Library" in /home/keith/ , download and extract the jar to there and run as follows ;

# java -jar Ubooquity.jar --headless --remoteadmin

It's a brand new install of Ubuntu 17.04 with Oracle JRE 9.

As far as a 'fresh install from scratch' is concerned, I'm not sure what you mean.  I've re-downloaded the .jar and ran it from different locations, and it does generate the theme/log/etc folders. The logs mirror the console output, which is to say nothing shows up after I enter in the new admin password twice.  It just sits there and spins.

Is there a way to manually create an admin password from the CLI or in the preferences file?