Resolving Invisible Comments Issue in Jira Due to Incorrect Group-Level Settings
Platform Notice: Cloud - This article applies to Atlassian products on the cloud platform.
Summary
This article addresses a common issue encountered by Jira users, where they are unable to view certain comments even though they belong to the same role as the user who created the comments. The root cause of this issue has been traced to the grouplevel property, which in some cases, has been set to refer to a non-existent group in Jira. This misinformation leads to a situation where the system expects members of this non-existent group to be the ones with access to view the comments, rendering the comments invisible to all users.
The solution to this issue involves adjusting the grouplevel property to null, indicating that comment visibility should be dependent on project roles rather than groups. This solution is implemented by running an SQL command within the Jira database. This effectively rectifies the visibility issue and aligns the system behavior with expected norms.
Environment
Jira Software Cloud
Jira Work Management Cloud
Diagnosis
Numerous Jira users have reported an issue where they are unable to view comments, even though these comments were made by users within their own project roles. This issue persists despite testing across multiple roles and common groups. The expected behavior is that Jira comments' visibility is controlled by project roles, allowing comments to be visible to certain roles and members of said roles.
Upon a deep dive into the entity relationship, it's been discovered that there are two properties that define visibility: the roleactor (project role) and grouplevel (groups). Both these properties must be valid for a user to view the comments.
Cause
In certain instances, it was found that these comments had no roleactor restriction, but the grouplevel was set to '00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000', which refers to a non-existent group in Jira. As a result, the system expects members of this non-existent group to have access to view the comments, causing the comments to be invisible to all users.
Solution
The solution to this issue involves setting the grouplevel to null, as visibility should be dependent on project roles, not groups.
To implement this solution, follow these steps:
- Access the Jira database.
- Run the following SQL query:
UPDATE jiraaction
SET grouplevel = null
WHERE grouplevel = '00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000' AND actiontype = 'comment' AND id in (XXXX,XXXX)
This SQL query will set the grouplevel to null where it was previously set to '00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000', effectively removing the reference to the non-existent group and allowing comments to be visible based on project roles.