Lost ALL of my data, and cannot get a human from Atlassian

[Justin Golden]

I had a jira board with all of my project info. I had hundreds of items and all my ideas on it. It seems like Atlassian decided to DELETE IT and I cannot access it. It's my board, I'm the only user, and this is my only account. I was promised by their automated system I would get a reply in 12 hours and it's been days and I've now reached out several times.

How can I get a human and/or get access to my missing Jira board?

Thank you in advance!

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Justin Golden 

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

Is this a Free or paid instance of Jira?

When you say you are the only user, are you the only user of this Jira instance or the only user of that particular board?

What happens when you try to access the board? Do you get a message? If so, what is the message?

When was the last time you accessed any data in this Jira instance?

Do you still have access to other information in the Jira instance?

If this is a scenario where:

• you don't have access to any other data
• it is/was a free subscription
• prior to this attempt you had not access the instance in 120 or more consecutive days

...then Atlassian may have deactivated the subscription due to inactivity. If that is the case they would've sent emails to the Organization Admin(s) warning of the prolonged inactivity and impending deactivation.

If you still have access to some data, then the above may not be the case.

If you still have access to some data have you checked if the project itself still exists? You may be in a scenario where the board was deleted but the project still exists.

Or the project may have been deleted or archived?

Atlassian doesn't really provide telephone support except, I think, when the subscriber is on an Enterprise plan.

When did you open your support case?

Through what link did you open your support case?

With answers to some of the questions above we may be able to provide guidance that is more directly applicable to your situation.

[Justin Golden]

Thank you for the quick reply! It's a free instance. Only user for everything.

The message I get is:

---

Page unavailable
Your Atlassian Cloud site is currently unavailable.

Please check Atlassian Status for known problems.
If there are no known problems and your page hasn't appeared again in 5-10 minutes then please contact our support team.

---

I don't have any information. The only atlassian product I used was Jira and this was the only board I made. I don't think that will be changing unless I can get my data back.

It seems possible they deleted it. I'm hoping they have some backup somewhere. I just want to access it for one day to move everything off. Rather absurd they would delete 0.01mb of data to "save space" especially when it's all of the notes and plans for my entire project. I guess this is what I get for not using their product for a few months.

I reached out probably around a week ago and then made another ticket yesterday. Both times I got a notification saying someone would reach out in 12 hours and neither times that actually happened.

I opened the support ticket through their support link and selected "Jira" as the product and filled out the form, attached a screenshot and attached the link to my board.

Thank you again for your help.

[Trudy Claspill]

How long ago was the last time you successfully accessed the site/data?

Atlassian has a documented policy that they reserve the right to remove unused instances. The cutoff is 120 consecutive  days of inactivity and they send multiple emails warning that there has been an extended period of inactivity prior to that period expiring.

They sand another email when they deactivate the subscription, warning that the data will soon be permanently deleted if the customer doesn't reactivate the subscription. If that grace period also expires the data is no longer recoverable.

You can try reactivating the subscription by following the guidance here:

https://support.atlassian.com/subscriptions-and-billing/docs/reactivate-a-subscription/

[Justin Golden]

Thank you again for the reply. I followed those steps and created a new Jira board. Now how can I get my data back?

[Trudy Claspill]

Are you saying that you successfully reactivated the subscription?

Are you sure you did not start a new subscription? Did you respond to a prompt to specify a new site name?

If you truly reactivated the pre-existing subscription then the data should still be present.

When was the last time, before this, that you successfully accessed the data?

If you actually started a new subscription using the same site name you had before, then your original site was permanently deleted and the data is not recoverable.

[Justin Golden]

I created a new jira board, following the instructions in that link. I last accessed the data maybe half a year ago, not sure exactly. My new jira board name was a different name.

[Trudy Claspill]

We are using different terminology. The document I provided does not reference "boards". It is instructions for app subscriptions. Boards are one of the elements available within a Jira app subscription; Spaces, Boards, Filters, Work Items, etc.

If I understand your statement correctly you started a new Jira app subscription. That will not contain any of the data you previously had.

If you last accessed your original data 6 months ago or longer, then unfortunately that data has been permanently deleted by now.

If that subscription was still available for reactivation you would've followed these steps from the document:

To reactivate a subscription:

1. Go to admin.atlassian.com/billing. Select your billing account if you have more than one.

2. On the Subscriptions page, select the Inactive tab.

3. Find the subscription you’re looking for and select Reactivate.

4. Review your subscription details and select Continue.

5. Review your billing details. If they weren’t added before, you can add them now. If you select or add a new payment method, all subscriptions billed together in the same billing profile will be moved over to the new payment method.

6. Select Confirm.

[Justin Golden]

So there's nothing I can do and all of my data has been permanently deleted?

[Trudy Claspill]

That is probably the case. For an authoritative answer from Atlassian complete the form here to submit your question to the Licensing support team.

https://www.atlassian.com/company/contact/purchasing-licensing#/

I think it is important to note that Atlassian doesn't "just" decide to deactivate subscriptions and delete data.

1. They have documented the policy about deactivating inactive free subscriptions in multiple places. The inactivity period is 4 months.
2. They send multiple emails warning about the extended period of inactivity and advising that all it takes is viewing the data to reset that inactivity period.
3. They send another email when the subscription is deactivated warning that the data will be permanently deleted.

Atlassian performed their due diligence to try to maintain your Free subscription to their product. 

With respect, do you honestly feel that you performed your due diligence to understand the product usage agreement you had with Atlassian, and insure the continuity of data that you deemed important?

[Rilwan Ahmed]

Hi @Justin Golden ,

Welcome to the community !!

When you say "I created a new jira board, following the instructions in that link. I last accessed the data maybe half a year ago, not sure exactly. My new jira board name was a different name."

-- If you accessed your jira instance half yearly ago, then it might have be deleted due to inactivity as per the process. 

[Justin Golden]

Thank you for the reply.

That really sucks. I had a lot of important data there and I've been spending days now trying to get it back. So I guess if you don't touch a project for a few months, or go on vacation, or have a medical emergency, or anything else in life happens, then Atlassian just decides to delete all of your data. That's amazing. I don't think I'll be trusting anything important to Atlassian again...