How to solve Jira Service Management mail loops
Platform notice: Server and Data Center only. This article only applies to Atlassian products on the Server and Data Center platforms.
Support for Server* products ended on February 15th 2024. If you are running a Server product, you can visit the Atlassian Server end of support announcement to review your migration options.
*Except Fisheye and Crucible
Problem
Emails sent to a Jira Service Management inbox are not creating issues, particularly from certain email addresses.
The Jira Service Management Processing Logs, located in the page ⚙ > Applications > Email Requests > View Log > Processing Logs, will show the error message "there are several messages within configured time-frame which indicates potential mail loop" in the detail section and the handler will be the "Mail Loop Detector".
Cause
A particular email address is sending a lot of email to Jira Service Management inbox in a short period of time. The advanced mail loop detector will block emails from specific email addresses if more than the configured number of emails are received within 15 minutes.
Workaround
Go to the incoming mail page located at ⚙ > System > Incoming mail, then scroll down to Advanced Configuration > Advanced mail loop detection, and make one of the following three changes:
- Increase the threshold so that it does not trigger as easily (recommended).
- Set the threshold to 0 to disable it completely (not recommended as it could cause a mail loop to spam your instance).
- Whitelist trusted domains so that they are not impacted by the mail loop detector (not recommended as it may cause a mail loop even on the trusted domain).
Mail loops are commonly caused by out of office notifications, so even trusted domains could cause a mail loop.