Unable to deactivate users using Deactivate feature in Jira server
Platform Notice: Data Center - This article applies to Atlassian products on the Data Center platform.
Note that this knowledge base article was created for the Data Center version of the product. Data Center knowledge base articles for non-Data Center-specific features may also work for Server versions of the product, however they have not been tested. 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
Platform Notice: Data Center - This article applies to Atlassian products on the Data Center platform.
Note that this knowledge base article was created for the Data Center version of the product. Data Center knowledge base articles for non-Data Center-specific features may also work for Server versions of the product, however they have not been tested. 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
Symptoms
JIRA Administrators cannot deactivate users in User Management (versions >= 5.1).
The recommended method for reducing your user count in JIRA is to remove users from all groups with the 'JIRA Users' global permission. This is described in the following knowledge base article: Unable to create issues due to exceeded number of licenses.
Cause
LDAP Connector
- If JIRA is configured to use external user management such as an LDAP Directory using 'LDAP Connector' this feature is not available as deactivating users is not a standard feature of LDAP servers. The feature is not available in any of the connection modes (Read only, Read Only with Local Groups or Read/Write)
Jira Cloud
- If the instance is a Jira Cloud instance then this feature is not available. The reason being in Jira Cloud removing user application access is achieved by a different procedure as documented at Managing application access
Frequently Asked Questions
Not applicable to JIRA 7
- It's working for JIRA internal directory but not LDAP connector, what about delegated LDAP?
Along with working with JIRA internal directory, deactivate users feature also works with the JIRA internal directory with LDAP authentication. - I'm using Crowd connector with JIRA at the moment, does this feature works for me?
Yes, it will work as JIRA will detect whether a user has been deactivated in Crowd server. If JIRA has write access to the Crowd server then it can update the server with the new active flag value. - I use JIRA as user management for another JIRA, will it work for me?
Yes, this feature works with JIRA being used as the centralised user management.
Workaround
- Use Connecting to an internal directory with LDAP authentication for user management in JIRA.
- Using Crowd Server for user management.
- Using JIRA 7 and above you can remove the users from the groups that have Application Access.