Upgrade RHEL from 7.3 to 7.4: ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException in sun.font.CompositeStrike.getStrikeForSlot

We just upgraded a server from RHEL v7.3 to v7.4.

This simple program works in RHEL v7.3 and fails in v7.4

public class TestJava {
  public static void main(String[] args) {
    Font font = new Font("SansSerif", Font.PLAIN, 12);
    FontRenderContext frc = new FontRenderContext(null, false, false);
    TextLayout layout = new TextLayout("\ude00", font, frc);
    layout.getCaretShapes(0);
    System.out.println(layout);
  }
}

The exception in RHEL 7.4 is :

Exception in thread "main" 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:2283)
    at java.awt.font.TextLayout.fastInit(TextLayout.java:598)
    at java.awt.font.TextLayout.<init>(TextLayout.java:393)

Te result on RHEL v7.3 is:

sun.font.StandardTextSource@7ba4f24f[start:0, len:1, cstart:0, clen:1, chars:"de00", level:0, flags:0, font:java.awt.Font[family=SansSerif,name=SansSerif,style=plain,size=12], frc:java.awt.font.FontRenderContext@c14b833b, cm:sun.font.CoreMetrics@412ae196]

The update of RHEL v7.4 includes an update of openjdk from 1.8.0.131 to 1.8.0.141 but this does not seems to be related to the version of openjdk, as the problem is the same with the IBM JDK coming with WebSphere v9.0 (v1.8.0 SR4 FP6). With the same version of the IBM JDK on a RHEL v7.3 and RHEL v7.4 server, the program works in RH 7.3 and fails in RH 7.4 the same way as with openjdk

Any idea what's going on?

Solution

We finally found it !
RHEL v7.4 (upgraded from v7.3 or fresh install) comes with package stix-fonts.
When this package is installed, the default font changed from Utopiato STIX So, java now default fonts are mapped to STIX, including thesans-seriffont family
For whatever reason, the STIX fonts does not seem to play well with java (openjdk+ IBM JDK) and cause exceptions and bad calculated artefacts positionning when using java.awt, which is the case with JasperReports
We ended creating a file name /etc/fonts/local.conf with this in order to force back Utopia as the default font, used by java..

<?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>

[EDITED 2018-10-22]
It seems the bug is fixed in JDK 1.8.192: https://bugs.java.com/view_bug.do?bug_id=JDK-8188030

[EDITED 2019-06-28]
There is now a fix to work around the problem included in IBM JDK v8.05.37 http://www-01.ibm.com/support/docview.wss?uid=swg1IJ16655