Deleting a custom field (consequences)

Rahul Aich [Nagra]

Hi

I have tens of custom fields on my jira instance which i no longer need. Some of them however, have some data in it.

Now, i want to get rid of those custom fields as the data in them are no longer required.

My questions are

1. If i delete a custom field which has data in them, what is the consequence on the issues which used those custom fields. Will they throw any errors?

2. What is the consequence on the database? Is there a possibility of causing an irreversible damage to the database which might cause a threat to me in future upgrades?

3. What about deleting custom fields which were created by a plugin which i had installed sometime in past but no longer use it?

Rahul

Nic Brough -Adaptavist-

1. No, as long as you do it with the UI.

2. No impact really, as long as you delete via the UI. Just make sure that you allow some time to run it - if you have lots of issues, it can thrash while the deletion of data happens

3. To do that safely, you usually have to put the plugin back, then you can delete via the UI as above.

Note that I've said "use the UI" on all three of these. That includes the script runner or plugins that do the work, but NOT SQL. If you try this with SQL, then the answers include high risk of corruption, error and data-loss.