Wrong JVM version - But Java is cannot be found with commands

Question

Hello,

I installed the current version of JIRA on my VPS with Debian 9 x64 Bit. JIRA is running so far proparly but there is one thing.

Currently I have the issue to run the JIRA Configurator and I get the following error message:

Wrong JVM version! You are running with .. but JIRA requires at least 1.8 to run.

It is not possible to read out the Java version with the following commands:

* which java
* java -version

But following command is working:

* whereis java -> java: /usr/share/java

I thought that Java will be installed automatically if you I the JIRA installer?

What can be the reason why this error message appears?

Best Regards and Thank you!

C. Tann · Answer

Thanks a lot. I will try it out!

Andy Heinzer · Answer

Hi Calogero,

I have seen this happen in lots of environments with Jira.  While it is true, that Atlassian will tend to bundle a Java JRE with Jira installation, this can work correctly for starting up Jira when no other Java has been installed to the system, but for some reason the configuration tool is not able to see/understand the location of this JRE to load up itself.

The solution I have found to this is to define the system variable called $JAVA_HOME

This config utility is looking for this parameter to be defined, and then use the path in that parameter to start up.  But lots of environments do not have this defined yet, so the config tool can panic that it is unable to find a suitable runtime environment to start itself.

I would recommend following the steps in Installing Java.   Once $JAVA_HOME is defined, and is pointed to a 1.8 Oracle JRE or JDK, then the config tool should be able to load up correctly.

Personally, I would recommend downloading the latest 1.8.x JDK version from Oracle's site.  The bundled JRE version is sufficient for starting Jira, but for some tasks like creating SSL keys for Jira's Tomcat to use, you might actually need to have the JDK instead of the JRE.   However even if you don't want to install a separate Java package, you could point the $JAVA_HOME to the bundled JRE that is included in the bin installation package of Jira.  This tends to be in the $JIRAINSTALL/jre/ folder.   But the reason I don't like using that location is because if you try to upgrade Jira to a later version and you use a different installation path, I find it is easier to forget about that location is your $JAVA_HOME.