Summary

This KB article lists the most common scenarios where a Jira user received a notification email, while this user did not expect to receive one.

Environment

Any Jira version from 7.x.

Diagnosis

• When using the Notification Helper tool to determine whether the impacted user should have received a notification email or not, this tool confirms that the user should not have received it:

  • This tool is located in the page ⚙ > System > Notification Helper
  • Note that this tool only check if the user is eligible to receive a notification for a particular event and Jira issue, but it does not guarantee that the user will actually receive it or not (since other parameters will come into play)
• Despite the Notification helper tool confirming that the user should not receive a notification, the user still receives notifications from it

Common Root Causes

Root Cause 1 - Expected behavior, as per the notification scheme configuration

Each Jira project is associated to a notification scheme, which is used to determine which user(s) should receive which notification(s) based on events (Issue Created, Issue Commented, Generic Event...).

If a user received a Jira notification while this user was not expecting it, it is possible that this user was actually supposed to receive a notification as per the notification scheme associated to the project.

In the notification scheme configuration, it is possible to associate a group of users or a project role, to specific events. Therefore, it is possible that the user had been recently added to the group or to the project role without knowing about it.

To verify whether the user should be receive a Jira notification based on a specific event, you can use the Notification Helper tool. This tool will confirm whether the user should or should not have received it:

• This tool is located in the page ⚙ > System > Notification Helper
• You will need to select the impacted user, the Jira issue from which the notification was sent, and the type of event
• Note that this tool only check if the user is eligible to receive a notification for a particular event and Jira issue, but it does not guarantee that the user will actually receive it or not (since other parameters will come into play)

Root Cause 2 - There is a clone/test/staging Jira instance configured with an outgoing mail server

When creating a staging Jira instance that is clone of a production environment (via the XML backup), it is recommended to disable all mail functionalities from this instance, as explained in the section 8. Start Jira in test environment of the documentation Creating a test environment for Jira.

If the mail functionalities are not disabled for this staging Jira instance, users might receive unwanted notification emails from issues or automation rules that were imported in that staging instance.

For more information about this root cause and its resolution, please refer to the KB article Jira users get unexpected email notifications from incorrect Jira Issue keys or from automation rules that were disabled.

Root Cause 3 - The Assets/Insight application is sending the "unexpected" notifications to the user

The Assets (formerly known as Insight) application which is now bundled with JSM (Jira Service Management) can send a notification to users in 3 ways: 

1. Workflow post-functions
2. Insight automation
3. User watching an Insight object and hence becoming a watcher on the Jira issue

It is possible that this application was configured to send notifications from a particular issue (or issue type) to some groups of users, which explains why some users receive "unexpected" notifications, since these notifications are not sent as per notification scheme configuration. Since the Notification Helper tool does not account for notifications sent from the Insight app (and for any application other than Jira), this tool is unable to tell whether a user should receive Insight notifications are not.

For more information about this root cause and its resolution, please refer to the KB article Users receiving notifications from issues where they should not receive notifications due to the Insight application.

Root Cause 4 - the user received a notification after editing an issue, despite using the option "My changes: set to "Do not notify me"

Due to a bug with the Jira application, users might receive a notification after editing a issue, despite turning off the notifications from their own changes:

• This bug only affects Issues and Projects that have Insight Field configured. The user does not have to modify the field value itself, as a notification is sent for any Issue Updated event made by the current user.
• There are no watched objects, and the Root Cause 3 from this article has already been ruled out
• This bug only affects Edit Issue Operation (changes made using Edit screen), not Inline Edit.
• This bug was introduced between the Jira 9.4/5.4 version and the 9.12/5.12 version.

For more information about this bug, please refer to JRASERVER-78142 - Users receive notifications on their own changes with the option "My changes: set to "Do not notify me" .

Root Cause 5 - The Automation For Jira application is sending the "unexpected" notifications to the user

Automation For Jira (A4J) can be used to configure rules that will send emails to users.

If a rule is configured to send an email from specific issues, to specific users, it can explain explains why some users receive "unexpected" notifications, since these notifications are not sent as per notification scheme configuration. Since the Notification Helper tool does not account for notifications sent from the Insight app (and for any application other than Jira), this tool is unable to tell whether a user should receive Insight notifications are not.

We recommend reviewing all the automation rules that are configured for the project the Jira issue belongs to, and see if any of them is configured to send email.

Root Cause 6 - the user who received the "unexpected" notification is a component lead in the Jira project

If the Component Lead is associated to an event in the Notification scheme configuration, this type of recipient will be ignored by the Notification helper. As a result, from the Notification Helper point of view, it looks like this user should not be notified, whereas as per the notification scheme, this user should be notified.

The issue with the Notification Helper is due to a known bug reported in JRASERVER-31704 - The notification helper does not account for notifications being sent to 'Component Lead'.

Root Cause 7 - A transition is configured with a post-function coming from a 3rd party add-on that is configured to sends emails

There are a lot of 3rd party add-ons available on the Atlassian Marketplace that come with custom post-function which will sends emails upon a transition. One example of such add-on is Jira Workflow Toolbox. 

If the unwanted email is only received upon a specific transition, then there is a chance that this transition is configured with a post-function configured to send emails to specific users. To check it:

• Identify the transition that is triggering such email
• Check how the workflow is configured (which can be found via the page Project Settings > Workflows, after clicking on the workflow that matches the type the issue belongs to)
• In the workflow, click on the transition, then click on the Post-Functions list and check if there is any post-function configured to send an email 

Root Cause 8 - The user mentioned themselves in a comment

If a user mentions themselves in a comment, this user will receive a notification despite configuring their own profile with "My Changes" set to "Do not notify me". This behavior is due to the bug linked below, which impacts all Jira versions, and both the batched and non-batched Jira notifications:

• JRASERVER-34717 - Mentioning yourself shouldn't send Notification mail

Root Cause 9 - The user who received the notification is associated to an incorrect email address in the Jira user base

Email addresses are not unique in Jira’s user base. Because of that, different users might be associated to the same email address in Jira, which can be verified by looking for these users in the page ⚙ > User Management > Users.

Because of that, some users might receive un-expected notification emails.

Here is an example of scenario where a user (called user2) will receive an unexpected notification email:

• let's assume that we have 2 Jira users user1 and user2, and that both users are using the same email address in ⚙ > User Management > Users
• let's assume that user1 is supposed to receive a notification from the Issue Commented event, as per the Notification Scheme configuration, while user2 is not supposed to
• if a comment is added to an issue, the following will happen:
  • the user1 will receive a notification about that comment ( expected)
  • the user2 will also receive the same notification, since the notification will be sent to the same email address shared by user1 and user2 ( unexpected)

To prevent this type of scenario from happening, we need to make sure that each Jira user has its own unique email address.

Please note that similar issue might occur if a Jira user is configured with a distribution email address. If this user is meant to receive a notification from a Jira issue as per the notification scheme configuration, all the recipients of the distribution email address will also receive it.

Root Cause 10 - The user who received the notification is part of a mailing list, and there is a Jira user configured with that mailing list

In the Jira application, it is possible to create a Jira user and configure the email address field of this user with a mailing list in the page ⚙ > User Management > Users. Since the Jira application has no knowledge whether user's email address is a mailing list or not, if this user was configured to receive a notification, the notification will be sent to the entire mailing list. As a result, any person which email address is part of this mailing list will receive the notification, even though their corresponding Jira user was not supposed to receive the notification in the first place.

To check whether it might be the case or not, ask the impacted users to go to their mailbox and check the To header of the notification. If their private email address is not there and instead there is a mailing list, then this root cause applies.

Root Cause 11 - The Jira notification was sent to the email address of a service account that was incorrectly configured on the mail server

We have seen situations where the Jira application sent an email to a Jira user which email address is the address of a service account (for example jira-team@somedomain.com). If the service account is not configured correctly on the mail server side, the notification email might land in the inbox of Jira users who have a completely different email address (for example user1@somedomain.com, user2@somedomain.com, etc...).

If you see that a user received a Jira notification that was not meant for them, please check the To: header of the email they received. This header will show the recipient of this notification. If the email address from the To: header is not their email address, but the address of a service account, please reach out to your mail server administrator as it is likely that there is a misconfiguration in the service account.