Can't access project with renamed key

[Ephraim_Moss]

I deleted  a project and changed the key on an existing project to the key of the deleted one, now I cannot access either or add a new project with the original key. Any suggestions?

[John Funk · Accepted solution]

Hi Ephraim - Welcome to the Atlassian Community!

Are you able to run a simple filter query to see if you can see the issues? 

Click in the Search Box, then click Advanced Search for Issues.

Then put in a filter for project = ABC where ABC is the key of the one you want to see

[Ephraim_Moss]

Thank you for the welcome, and yes, I could find my issues in the advanced search.

I also noticed in the depths of my inbox an email from jira saying that my previously thought to be permanently deleted project was in a "trash" folder for the next 60days. I restored the deleted projects, moved all the issues over as needed/renamed as required and deleted the unused project. Now all is happy.

I guess there is an obscure bug which goes as follows: if you change the key of a project to that of one that has been deleted in this "restore period" before project is permanently deleted. the frontend services get confused. it seems as the run on project key rather then numeric project id. Granted obscure use case, this would need to be tested as this is my hypothesis.

[John Funk]

Great! Glad you were able to recover it and move forward. 

Yes, Keys cannot be reused unless (until) the original project is completely deleted. It is good to know there is a trash folder for deleted projects - way too many times projects get deleted on accident.  :-)