Unable to remove Buggy Issue Types as it says there are (deleted) issues matching it

Question

Hi Team,

Hoping you can collectively help. This has been vexxing me for a while.

JIRA Server 7.3.0, Maintenance Expired

I've inherited a JIRA instance where a previous project admin has created 70+ issues and sub-task types for his now extinct project. Madness I know!

In order to remove the issue types I first Admin deleted the project (probably not the best thing to do?), thinking that would un-associate everything so I can delete the issue types.

However when I attempt to delete the issues, it says:

"Note: This issue type cannot be deleted - there are currently X matching issues with no suitable alternative issue types (only issues you have permission to see will be displayed, which may be different from the total count shown on this page).

In order for an issue type to be deleted, it needs to be associated with one workflow, field configuration and field screen scheme across all projects. If this is not the case, JIRA can not provide a list of valid replacement issue types."

Of course when I click on the X Matching issues link, it takes me to an empty search filter. Additionally when I go back to the Project's admin page, the project still shows up there, but is empty. Weird?

I've tried the solution here: https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-questions/Can-t-Delete-Broken-Issue-Type/qaq-p/187732

but sadly it's still not working.

It's a real pain whenever I set up a new project as I have to trawl through 70 issue types to get to the 5-6 we actually use. The next admin is probably also going to think I'm an idiot.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks

andrew_king_ · Answer

Thanks for the input Nic, when we're not so busy we'll back-up the DB and try your suggested fix. I'll be sure to respond with the outcome!

Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Answer

Ouch, yes, that's a corrupted database.

I know of two ways to get there - first, when a Jira bulk delete fails in one session while a project deletion is running in another, and second, someone or something is messing with your database (either someone touched it with SQL, or a badly written script or add-on)

The best option would probably be to put the project back (via SQL which isn't easy), put the key back on the issues (while offline of course, and re-indexing afterwards) and then re-delete the project through the UI

andrew_king_ · Answer

Hi Nic,

Thanks for your input, I've performed a full re-index and the project has no permission or issue level security on it. So I think I've managed to rule that out.

I've had an engineer take a look at the SQL database. It looks like when deleting the project those issues had their PKEY nulled, but nothing else and the issues still "exist", but are stuck in limbo as they have no project key linked to them so can't be found, however they still have the issue type id linked to them so are stopping the Issue type being deleted.

It looks like this is a corrupted database we may need to scrub, potentially we can find change all issue types of these 70 issues and null them out to de-link them. This feels risky however and I'm hoping there's a better Atlassian Official way