Reference Application 2.13.0 – bugs, workarounds, release plans & AMI feedback.

Software Reference App
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Hi everyone,

We’ve been using OpenMRS Reference Application 2.13.0 as the foundation for an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) that we maintain and provide to our clients for quick and repeatable OpenMRS deployments on AWS.

As part of this effort, we’ve encountered (and our clients have reported) several issues with the current release that I’d like to share here, along with a couple of questions and suggestions for the community.

Issues we’ve run into

  1. Demo data fails to load
  • This seems to be a known bug. We found that the issue is already fixed in the openmrs-core 2.7.x branch, but there hasn’t been a new Reference Application release that includes this fix.
  • As a workaround, we replaced the liquibase-demo-data.xml file inside the .war, and that seems to solve the problem.
  1. NullPointerException in Cohort Reports
  • When trying to create cohort reports from the admin menu, we hit a NullPointerException. This seems to also occur on demo.openmrs.org, so it’s likely not environment-specific.
  • Has anyone found a workaround for this? Is there an open ticket we can follow or contribute to?

AWS AMI for OpenMRS

We’re building and maintaining a public AMI that ships with Reference Application 2.13.0 pre-installed, to make it easier for users to spin up OpenMRS in cloud environments. We’d love to:

  • Help get the word out to the community.
  • Hear your feedback on how such an AMI could be most useful.
  • Collaborate on improving stability and ease of deployment for new OpenMRS users and implementers.

You can find the AMI here:

Questions to the community

  1. Are there plans for an upcoming Reference Application release?
  2. Is anyone else seeing the same bugs? Any workarounds?
  3. How can we better collaborate to make OpenMRS easier to deploy and keep stable?
  4. Is the AMI valuable for implementers?
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We are focusing on the O3 Reference Application. But you are free to do a release of the next version of the O2 Reference Application that is based on platform 2.7 as per the instructions at: https://openmrs.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/docs/pages/25477303/OpenMRS+Reference+Application+Release+Process

Even if you do not have the time to fix it yourself, creating a ticket is a step in the right direction because it gives any volunteer a chance to look into it. These are the instructions for creating tickets: https://openmrs.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/docs/pages/25477033/Tickets

By engaging in discussions like this. You can start a talk thread where you share potential approaches and then ask for feedback. You can even book a slot on our weekly platform calls to dive further into it. https://openmrs.atlassian.net/wiki/spaces/docs/pages/26273961/Platform+Team

Yes i believe that there will always be a section of implementers who find this as the most convenient way of deploying OpenMRS.

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Thanks, Daniel - much appreciated!

As suggested, we’ve created a ticket for the cohort report issue here: RCM-123 – NullPointerException when creating cohort reports via admin menu

Would be great if you could take a quick look and let us know if anything’s missing.

We’re not committing to a RefApp 2.x release just yet, but it’s good to know the process is open. Depending on community interest and how many issues surface, we may consider supporting a maintenance release.

Also, just to clarify for anyone following along: we’re also maintaining a separate AMI for OpenMRS 3.x

We’ll keep sharing findings as we go - and may join an upcoming platform call.

Thanks again!