Re-indexing after major configuration changes

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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. Configuration details such as the following can affect the search index:

If you make changes to any of these areas of configuration, you might see the following message in your Administration view:

USERFULLNAME made configuration changes to 'SECTION' at TIME. It is recommended that you perform a re-index. It is recommended that you perform a re-index. For more information, please click the Help icon.
To perform the re-index now, please go to the 'Indexing' section.
Note: So that you only have to re-index once, you may wish to  complete any other configuration changes before performing the re-index.

All users that have access to the Administration Tab will see this message (JIRA Administrators, System Administrators, Project Administrators). The above message means that configuration changes have been made to JIRA, but have not yet been reflected in the search index. Until JIRA's search index has been rebuilt, it is possible that some search queries from JIRA will return incorrect results. For example:

  • If a plugin containing a custom field is enabled after being disabled, search queries which specify 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 is now visible, search queries which specify 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. 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 chose 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; and
  • Start the re-index process in a time period of low activity for your instance.
Last modified on Sep 4, 2017

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