Automation throws error: Found multiple fields with the same name and type: . Epic Link

[Kees Vianen]

I have created an automation rule to create a new issue. 

I have included the Epic link field.

When the rule is executed I get this error:

and the epic is not linked to the newly created issue.

What am I doing wrong here?

[John Funk]

Hi Kees,

This happens when someone creates another Custom Field with the same name. This could have been done on a Team-managed project. Is your rule a Global rule? Or a Single or Multiple Project rule? 

[Kees Vianen]

It is a single project rule for a JIRA Service Management project.

The issue that is created is created in another project which is a JIRA Software project.

The usecase is to create a bug in the developers project from a reported incident.

[John Funk]

Can you share the entire rule? 

[Kees Vianen]

Here it is:

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

The Automation rule looks fine, you will need to get your admins to get rid of the duplicated field - just rename it, no need to delete it.

[Kees Vianen]

I see only one:

[Kees Vianen]

Logged in as admin and checked the custom fields. Now I see 2 but both are locked.

How can I rename a locked field?

[John Funk]

Yikes - never seen that before. That's probably going to take a support ticket with Atlassian. 

In the meantime, you might try updating the field using the Advanced feature. 

In the rule, click the More options with the down caret beside it. 

Replace everything in there with:

{
"fields": {
"{{issue.customfield_10009": "GPS-11360"}
}

Where 10009 is the Epic Link ID for the Epic you are using. To see that click on the 3 dots menu to the right and select View field information. The ID will be in the URL. I would try the one that has the most screens and projects already used by it. 

And then take out the field update that you have now for it. 

But you should still open the support ticket. 

Finally, some of your field updates look like they are just copying over themselves. Copying a value from a field to the same field in the same issue doesn't see to be doing any good to me. Did you meant to copy from the Trigger issue? If so, click the words Current Issue and then change to Trigger Issue. 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I have seen this happen, when someone removed Jira Software from their Jira, then re-added it a few months later.  There was a time where there was a bug in Jira Software that when it was added to Jira, it automatically added the Epic fields, but didn't check to see if they already existed properly, so it would duplicate the field (there was a spelling mistake in the code that looked for the Epic Link field, and one of the others if memory serves)

I don't think that's what's gone wrong here though - I'm talking about a version of Jira Cloud from quite a while ago.

@[deleted] is absolutely right on this one, you really need to get this raised with Atlassian as soon as you can.

[John Funk]

Thanks for the explanation @Nic Brough -Adaptavist-  - I can see how that might happen. Though I had no idea before that scenario!

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I've only seen it twice (five times if you count the people who messed with the database and got it horribly wrong), so it's pretty obscure!

[John Funk]

@Kees Vianen  - How are you getting along with this? 

[Kees Vianen]

I have succesfully implemented the workaround. After some trial and error I found that it had to be like this:

{
"fields": {
"customfield_11100": "GPS-11360"
}
}

Now I will raise an issue with Atlassian support.

I learned that we had a cloud environment and at some point imported from on-prem to that existing cloud environment. That may have caused it.

[John Funk]

Glad you got it working. And thanks for letting us know the reason. Hopefully, they have cleaned one of them out for you.