Can't delete a workflow step

[George Carvill]

Don't know if this is a plain JIRA item or a GreenHopper one, but...

Customizing my workflow, I accidentally put in a step from a different workflow. Didn't notice it until an Issue landed in the step. I have changed the workflow and there are no connections to the bad step. But it still appears on the sheet. When I try to delete it, I get this message:

You cannot delete a step on a draft workflow that exists on the parent workflow.

So what's the "parent" workflow and/or how do I get it off the page?

[Jobin Kuruvilla [Adaptavist] · Accepted solution]

You can't delete a step in draft. You will have to copy the workflow, make changes and activate it as mentioned here:

https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/JIRA/Configuring+Workflow#ConfiguringWorkflow-Limitationswheneditinganactiveworkflow

[George Carvill]

OK. So what I did was assoicate a different workflow to the project. Then I was able to delete the step and revert the association back. I have had to do that before. But in the past the other situations gave me clear messages. This one about the "parent" workflow is a non-starter.

It might also be useful if the JIRA help could have links for all these canned error messages so you could search on one (as I did) and find out what it is about.

[Soichi Hayashi]

I am having the same problem. From the answer posted above, am I correct to assume that, if you accidentally add a step, you have to discard the draft, create a new bogus workflow, associate all projects that are currently using the workflow that I am trying edit with this bogus workflow, then remove the step from the workflow that I am editing, then reset all projects with the original workflow?

[George Carvill]

You say, "Discard the draft." If you added the step in the draft, then you can delete it there.

But if the step is in a live workflow, then, yes, you can't just delete it.

My guess is that JIRA can't really tell if the step is in use or not. Hence, you make a copy of your current worflow and apply that to all the appropriate projects. No conversion needs to happen at that point. Then you take your real workflow and delete the step. Now, when you apply the real workflow back to the projects it will go through the conversion process and if it finds anything in the deleted step it will ask you what step to move it to.

[Steve Jones]

It's 2021. Can this be fixed now?

[Cameron Dostal]

Upvote, 9 years later and this issue is still yet to be resolved.

[Chris Mann]

Oh, FFS! - I've just hit this problem and am not really very happy with having to do all this just to remove a step that is no longer relevant...

Grrr!