Jira Cloud Free: Jira admin has ADMINISTER_PROJECTS=false and cannot access Development tools

[Andrej Minin]

Hi,

I have a permissions issue on a Jira Cloud Free site.

Affected project/space: FEM

I am an administrator of the Atlassian organization. My account has the following access:

- Organization admin
- Member of org-admins
- Member of the Jira administrators group
- Member of the Jira users group
- Jira Administration: App admin

However, when I open:

FEM → Space settings → Development tools

I get the following message:

"Sorry, you can't view this page.
This page is only available to administrators of this project."

I checked my effective project permissions using the Jira REST API:

GET /rest/api/3/mypermissions?projectKey=FEM&permissions=ADMINISTER_PROJECTS

The response shows:

ADMINISTER_PROJECTS
- name: Administer Projects
- type: PROJECT
- havePermission: false

So Jira considers my account NOT to be an administrator of the FEM project, even though the account is a Jira administrator and is a member of the Jira administrators group.

I also checked:

FEM → Space settings → People

It shows:

"This space has 0 roles"

and:

"On a free plan, you can only add people using your site's administration settings."

Therefore, I cannot assign myself an Administrator role from the space settings.

Steps already taken:

1. Verified that the account is an Organization admin.
2. Verified membership in the Jira administrators group.
3. Verified membership in the Jira users group.
4. Refreshed/re-logged into Jira after changing group membership.
5. Verified the effective ADMINISTER_PROJECTS permission through the REST API.
6. ADMINISTER_PROJECTS still returns havePermission=false.

My questions are:

1. Why does a member of the Jira administrators group have ADMINISTER_PROJECTS=false for this Jira Free project?
2. How can I grant ADMINISTER_PROJECTS to my account on the Free plan, given that project/space roles cannot be managed from Space settings?
3. Is the project's permission configuration in an inconsistent state?
4. How can I restore project administrator access so that I can use Development tools without upgrading the site?

Any help identifying how to fix the permission configuration would be appreciated.

Thank you.

[Arkadiusz Wroblewski · Accepted solution]

Hello @Andrej Minin 

The important question is: Was this Jira site ever on Standard/Premium/a trial, or was this project migrated from Jira Server/Data Center?

Atlassian highlights key behaviors for Jira Free:

1. Users with access on an always-Free site typically have admin rights across all Jira spaces.

2. If a site is downgraded or migrated to Free, existing permission schemes and roles are maintained but cannot be edited.

This can lead to issues: if the permission scheme requires an "Administrators" role, the Free plan prevents assigning users to that role, resulting in ADMINISTER_PROJECTS being false.

Also, while the "View Development Tools" setting controls visibility of development information, your main issue is that Jira does not recognize you as a project administrator (ADMINISTER_PROJECTS = false).

Best,

Arek🤠

[Andrej Minin]

Hi Arkadiusz,

Thanks, this is very helpful.

As far as I know, this Jira site was created directly as a Free Cloud site. It was not migrated from Jira Server/Data Center and, to my knowledge, it has never been on Standard or Premium.

The current permission scheme grants Administer Projects only to:

Space Role: Administrators
atlassian-addons-project-access

However, under Space settings → People, Jira shows “This space has 0 roles”, so there appears to be no way for me to assign my account to the Administrators role.

If an always-Free site should normally grant Jira users admin rights across all spaces, could this indicate that the site's/project's permission configuration is in an unexpected state?

Is there a way to reset the FEM project's permissions to the default Jira Free configuration without upgrading the site?

Thanks!

[Arkadiusz Wroblewski]

@Andrej Minin 

Without upgrade i don´t see here possibility to change that.

[Jeroen Poismans]

Hello,

Org admin and Jira admin does not mean you have access to all projects and everything within Jira. This is by design and also preferable because you are indeed an administrator of the tool, but do not necessarily need to see all content within the tool and the work items.

As a product admin you can however grant yourself the correct permission on those projects, but it needs to be a deliberate action.

[Hana Kučerová]

Hi @Andrej Minin ,

please look into the permission scheme associated with the project (space), who has the permission Administer projects.

[Andrej Minin]

Thanks. I checked the permission scheme.

Administer Projects is granted to:

Space Role: Administrators
atlassian-addons-project-access

So it looks like my account is not a member of the Administrators space role.

However, under FEM → Space settings → People, Jira Free shows “This space has 0 roles”, and I cannot assign myself to the Administrators role there.

Since this is a Jira Cloud Free site, how can I add my account to the Administrators space role?

This seems to be the reason why the REST API returns ADMINISTER_PROJECTS: false even though I am an Organization admin and Jira admin.