I just managed to get the right combination too through trial and error.
Ubuntu 20.
PostgreSQL 10.23
JDK 11
Apache Tomcat 8.5
DHIS 2.37.0
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Thank you Ben. After personally spending considerable time troubleshooting a local DHIS2 installation on macOS, I wanted to share findings that might help others avoid similar challenges.
Modern development environments (Java 17+, Tomcat 11, latest Docker) fail to run the latest stable DHIS2 properly, even though these are current, well-maintained versions of the software stack.
What finally worked:
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Java 11 (OpenJDK)
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Apache Tomcat 8.5
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DHIS2 2.37.x
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PostgreSQL with PostGIS extension - not having this specifically results in failure to launch.
Key Issues:
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Silent failures - DHIS2 WAR files deploy but never initialize with newer Java/Tomcat versions
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Missing PostGIS requirement
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Docker compatibility - Even containerized versions had architecture/resource issues on macOS.
The platform itself is powerful once running, but the installation experience could be more developer-friendly, especially for those wanting to contribute to the ecosystem or learn the system locally. Not come across any, but there is a need for compatibility matrices in the documentation.
Thanks for sharing, and welcome to the DHIS2 Community!
Actually, these should work, would you like to share what were the issues you were facing? Which specific DHIS2 version you used?
I’d actually recommend trying the later versions as 2.37 is quite an older version.
If you don’t mind, could you please try to use one of the latest stable releases and then share the issues you face in a new topic? It would also be helpful to detail which method you used for installation.
I see that you are using MacOS, so it would be helpful if you provide more details. For windows, I would have shared this resource with you: Installing Multiple DHIS2 instances locally using Docker Compose in Windows OS WSL2 + get-dhis2.sh Automation Script
Thanks!