JIRA 7.5.0 Upgrade failed due to missing GUI (linux commandline)

[Erick van Rijk]

Hi all,
I tried to upgrade Jira v7.4.3 to Jira v7.5.0 using the installer atlassian-jira-software-7.5.0-x64.bin like I normally do. This time I receive the following error:
######################
[root@xxx~]# ./atlassian-jira-software-7.5.0-x64.bin
Unpacking JRE ...
Starting Installer ...
Could not display the GUI. This application needs access to an X Server.
*******************************************************************
You can also run this application in console mode without
access to an X server by passing the argument -c
*******************************************************************
######################
Adding the -c option does not resolve the issue (never needed it before).

The knowledge base suggest that I'm running the 32bit installer on the 64bit os.
Linux xxx.*********.local 3.10.0-693.2.2.el7.x86_64 #1 SMP Tue Sep 12 22:26:13 UTC 2017 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
Java is also 64bit
[root@xxx~]# java -version
java version "1.8.0_92"
Java(TM) SE Runtime Environment (build 1.8.0_92-b14)
Java HotSpot(TM) 64-Bit Server VM (build 25.92-b14, mixed mode)

Has anyone else run into this issue?

[edit] I forgot to mention that this is a headless server. So access to the GUI is not possible (x-windows server is not installed).

[Shannon S · Accepted solution]

Evrijk,

Can you tell me if you happen to be on Red Hat Linux?

I have another customer with the same issue, and it was related to this bug in Red Hat:

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1484079

When upgrading to RHEL v7.4 , it comes with with package stix-fonts. When that package is installed, the default font changes from Utopia to STIX. So then java will default fonts mapped to STIX including the sans-serif font family. It seems that there is some issue with STIX fonts and Java, which causes exceptions.

If this is your case, you could create a file name /etc/fonts/local.conf with that order to force back Utopia as the default font, being used by Java.

Alternatively, I found this issue that is similar as well where installing dejavu sans fonts corrected another install issue:

• BSERV-6886

Let us know if you have any questions.

Kind Regards,
Shannon

[Erick van Rijk]

Hi Shannon,

I'm using CentOS Linux 7.4.1708  (running on vmware).

I do have STIX fonts 1.1.0-5.el7 installed.

Installing dejavu-sans-fonts seemed to resolve the issue.

I'm still baffled why the font would matter in commandline.

Thank you for the pointer bitbucket issue. Perhaps an improvement in the error notification in commandline would be advised.


Thanks

Erick

[Shannon S]

Hi Erick,

In most cases the error is correct, but in yours is a red herring. If you see on the Bitbucket issue it actually complains about a NPE and issues with fonts. Yours didn't say for any reason why it was failing. For this reason I was reluctant to send you that ticket initially. So I'm happy to see that it resolved it for you. 

Take care and Kind Regards,
Shannon

[Brandon Saunders]

Installing the proper fonts fixed the issue for me. Thank you.

[Shannon S]

Happy the suggestion worked for you as well, Brandon!

Kind regards,

Shannon