Jira dashboard gadgets fail to render and instead display 'An internal server error occurred when requesting resource' error

Summary

Multiple gadgets and reports such as Time Since Chart, Average Chart and etc will not load with the message "An internal server error occurred when requesting resource" shown instead.

Environment

• Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 7.4

Steps to Reproduce

1. Attempt to view a dashboard with a Time Since Chart

Expected Results

The dashboard is displayed and all gadgets are rendered

Actual Results

A 'An internal server error occurred when requesting resource' message is shown instead of the gadget.

The below exception is thrown in the xxxxxxx.log file:

2017-09-04 19:54:11,205 http-nio-8080-exec-6 ERROR admin 1194x753x1 ae48vd 10.252.221.186,10.60.1.104 /rest/gadget/1.0/averageage/generate [c.a.p.r.c.error.jersey.ThrowableExceptionMapper] Uncaught exception thrown by REST service: 0
java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 0
at sun.font.CompositeStrike.getStrikeForSlot(CompositeStrike.java:75)
at sun.font.CompositeStrike.getFontMetrics(CompositeStrike.java:93)
at sun.font.Font2D.getFontMetrics(Font2D.java:415)
at java.awt.Font.defaultLineMetrics(Font.java:2176)
at java.awt.Font.getLineMetrics(Font.java:2246)
 
Caused by: java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: 0 at sun.font.CompositeFont.getSlotFont(CompositeFont.java:351) at sun.font.CompositeGlyphMapper.initMapper(CompositeGlyphMapper.java:81) at sun.font.CompositeGlyphMapper.<init>(CompositeGlyphMapper.java:62) at sun.font.CompositeFont.getMapper(CompositeFont.java:409) at sun.font.StandardGlyphVector.init(StandardGlyphVector.java:1122) at sun.font.StandardGlyphVector

Notes

The default font was changed from Utopia to Styx in RHEL 7.4, this is not handled well by the JVM and breaks functionality. For more information see Bug 1484079 – AWT java apps fail to start when stix-fonts is used as sans-serif font

Workaround

1. Stop Jira
2. Create /etc/fonts/local.conf
3. Paste the following:

   <?xml version='1.0'?>
   <!DOCTYPE fontconfig SYSTEM 'fonts.dtd'>
   <fontconfig>
     <alias>
       <family>serif</family>
       <prefer><family>Utopia</family></prefer>
     </alias>
     <alias>
       <family>sans-serif</family>
       <prefer><family>Utopia</family></prefer>
     </alias>
     <alias>
       <family>monospace</family>
       <prefer><family>Utopia</family></prefer>
     </alias>
     <alias>
       <family>dialog</family>
       <prefer><family>Utopia</family></prefer>
     </alias>
     <alias>
       <family>dialoginput</family>
       <prefer><family>Utopia</family></prefer>
     </alias>
   </fontconfig>
   

4. Save the file
5. Start Jira

If the above does not fix the issue, install the dejavu-serif-fonts by running the following:

sudo yum install dejavu-serif-fonts