How to restrict external users from adding in to Watchers

[Vallala Ujwala]

We are trying to restrict external users from adding in to Watchers but need to be added in Request Participants 

We have used listener to restrict users however the count is not updating .Is there any way to update count (on refresh count is disappearing)

[Robin Kon]

Seen this happen when you try to control Watchers via a listener, especially if you're modifying it post-issue-update. The count not updating usually means the UI isn't getting the new state in real-time, or the listener logic isn't fully blocking the change at the right event timing.

We had a similar setup where we allowed external users as Request Participants but restricted Watchers to internal roles. What worked better for us was using a custom condition inside a workflow validator or a ScriptRunner behavior to prevent the Watcher update entirely before it gets saved, instead of cleaning it up after the fact. Listeners often run too late to update the visible count reliably.

Also, worth checking if your listener is running asynchronously, which would delay the count update until after the page loads. If that’s the case, switching to a sync listener might help with the UI sync issue.