Symptoms

Application logs contain numerous occurrences of the following statement:

2009-05-26 08:55:06,321 JiraQuartzScheduler_Worker-0 WARN [service.util.handler.AbstractMessageHandler] Received message carrying this JIRA instance fingerprint (xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx)

In addition to the logs mentioned above, Jira may be processing incoming emails slowly or not at all.

Cause

The JIRA application code detected a possible looping of emails. Since version 3.13 of JIRA (see JRA-12467) every outgoing email is tagged with a custom header identifying the instance that is generating it. If any message containing such a header appear in any of the monitored incoming mailboxes, JIRA will log a WARN message and send a copy of the mail to the Forward: address defined in the mail handler configuration.

If the mail loop is the cause, Jira may end up processing incoming emails slowly or not at all. 

Resolution

Identify and remove potential loop conditions such as:

1. Remove the Notification schemes associated with the project as described in here.
   
   • This is to stop the mail looping if there is any user account with the same email address of an email handler service.
2. Check if there is any user accounts with the same email address of an email handler service.
   
   • Search for the IMAP/POP server address at User Browser.
3. Make sure the Forward Email option configured in the mail handler is not the IMAP/POP server address as shown in here.
4. Check if there are any automatic response systems under administrative control which respond to emails from JIRA.
5. Change the email address associated to the user account causing the problem to a dummy address as described here.