Re-indexing after major configuration changes
Once issues have been created, modifying the configuration of your Jira instance can result in the search index becoming out-of-sync with Jira's configuration. The following configuration details can affect the search index:
If you make changes to any of these configurations, the following message will appear in the Administration view:
We recommend that you perform a re-index, as configuration changes were made to 'SECTION' by USER at TIME. If you have other changes to make, complete them first so that you don't perform multiple re-indexes
All users that have access to the Administration tab will get this message (Jira admins, system admins, and project admins). The message means that configuration changes have been made to Jira, but haven’t yet been reflected in the search index. Until Jira's search index has been rebuilt, some search queries from Jira can return incorrect results. For example:
If an app containing a custom field is enabled after being disabled, search queries specifying that the custom field should be empty will return no issues instead of all issues.
- If a field configuration is modified by altering the visibility of a particular field so that it's now visible, search queries specifying that field may also return erroneous results, depending on which field is being modified and what query is being executed.
The way to resolve the discrepancy is to rebuild Jira's search index.
If you want to know if you need to re-index Jira after any configurations in your instance, check Reindexing in Jira Server and Data Center after configuring an instance for tips.
This can take anywhere from seconds to hours, depending on the number of issues and comments in your Jira instance. While re-indexing is taking place, your instance will be unavailable to all users unless you choose Background Indexing. For these reasons, it is recommended that you:
Make all your necessary configuration changes in one go before starting the re-index process.
Start the re-index process in a time period of low activity for your instance.