Problem

Bulk editing issues in Jira is slow. It can take anywhere from 10 minutes to a few hours to bulk edit a large amount of issues. Here are some sample bulk edit times tested on a new/vanilla JIRA server instance:

We've tested editing issues to add a value to 3 fields and change the priority of all issues, and this is how long this took depending on the number of issues:

• 100 issues - 7 seconds
• 500 issues - 32 seconds
• 1000 issues - 67 seconds

Depending on the changes you are making to all of these tickets, the times can vary. It is acceptable for this to take up to a few minutes. However, in the cases where this is taking too long and the changes are prohibitive, you might be able to speed this up.

Diagnosis

• Check if this is only occurring in a 3rd party or custom field - if so, get in touch with the plugin vendor for support

  • This issue has been encountered when using specific custom fields from the Xray Test Management plugin for Jira.  

• Enable safe mode and see if the issue continues - if the issue goes away then this could be a plugin issue

• If Automation For Jira is installed in your Jira application, try to disable it via the page ⚙ > Manage Apps > Manage Apps and see if the bulk edit is much faster
• Run a background re-index and then test again
• Ensure you are not encountering any performance issues that could be causing this. 

Solution

• If safe mode helps speed this up, disable each 3rd party individually and test to narrow it down to a specific plugin

• If disabling Automation For Jira speeds up the bulk edit, then check KB article Jira issue bulk operation slowness due to Automation for Jira to see how to mitigate the impact of this app

• If this is caused by a custom field coming from a 3rd party plugin, contact the plugin vendor for support

• If this is caused by a custom field you have set up, or if you are unable to resolve this otherwise - contact Atlassian Support

  • Do include logs with the com.atlassian.jira.web.action.issue.bulkedit package set to DEBUG logging to add the Bulk Edit progress percentage added in the log, visualizing the slowness of the operation