Maybe caused by the absence of host application(s), like gawk, chrpath and texinfo.
Below is one example.
ERROR: Unable to start bitbake server (None)
ERROR: Server log for this session (/home/zephyr/workspace/w031/openembedded-core/build/bitbake-cookerdaemon.log):
--- Starting bitbake server pid 22675 at 2019-03-16 00:28:44.447008 ---
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/zephyr/workspace/w031/bitbake/lib/bb/cookerdata.py", line 290, in parseBaseConfiguration
    bb.event.fire(bb.event.ConfigParsed(), self.data)
  File "/home/zephyr/workspace/w031/bitbake/lib/bb/event.py", line 225, in fire
    fire_class_handlers(event, d)
  File "/home/zephyr/workspace/w031/bitbake/lib/bb/event.py", line 134, in fire_class_handlers
    execute_handler(name, handler, event, d)
  File "/home/zephyr/workspace/w031/bitbake/lib/bb/event.py", line 106, in execute_handler
    ret = handler(event)
  File "/home/zephyr/workspace/w031/openembedded-core/meta/classes/base.bbclass", line 238, in base_eventhandler
    setup_hosttools_dir(d.getVar('HOSTTOOLS_DIR'), 'HOSTTOOLS', d)
  File "/home/zephyr/workspace/w031/openembedded-core/meta/classes/base.bbclass", line 142, in setup_hosttools_dir
    bb.fatal("The following required tools (as specified by HOSTTOOLS) appear to be unavailable in PATH, please install them in order to proceed:\n  %s" % " ".join(notfound))
  File "/home/zephyr/workspace/w031/bitbake/lib/bb/__init__.py", line 120, in fatal
    raise BBHandledException()
bb.BBHandledException
During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/zephyr/workspace/w031/bitbake/lib/bb/daemonize.py", line 83, in createDaemon
    function()
  File "/home/zephyr/workspace/w031/bitbake/lib/bb/server/process.py", line 469, in _startServer
    self.cooker = bb.cooker.BBCooker(self.configuration, self.featureset)
  File "/home/zephyr/workspace/w031/bitbake/lib/bb/cooker.py", line 210, in __init__
    self.initConfigurationData()
  File "/home/zephyr/workspace/w031/bitbake/lib/bb/cooker.py", line 375, in initConfigurationData
    self.databuilder.parseBaseConfiguration()
  File "/home/zephyr/workspace/w031/bitbake/lib/bb/cookerdata.py", line 317, in parseBaseConfiguration
    raise bb.BBHandledException
bb.BBHandledException
ERROR: The following required tools (as specified by HOSTTOOLS) appear to be unavailable in PATH, please install them in order to proceed:
  gawk