Links in a Custom URL Field No Longer Opening in New Tab

Question

Up until last week whenever we clicked on a linked contained in a custom URL field, the link would open in a new tab. However, now when we click on the link it opens on the same page.

Does anyone know why this behaviour has changed? Is there a way for us to change it back?

I've seen some feature requests about this being added in, however, I'm more specifically wondering why the behaviour has changed. The feature requests I've seen don't seem to mention the fact it's been enabled for x time and then disabled again.

In summary:

* We are using Jira Service Management
* We have a custom field with the 'URL' field type
* Up until last week, clicking on links made them open in new tabs
* Now, with no recognisable change on our end, they are being opened on the same page

Greg D · Answer

FYI, this bug was created for this back in October:  JRACLOUD-84891 - URL field type opens the link in the same browser tab instead of opening in a new tab.

There is some other related behavior I was investigating and saw this community post.

Patrick Seamars_dnjzfh · Answer

What I did as a work around is I created a new Custom Field as a copy of what I was using. I made sure not to use the URL field type, and instead used the Paragraph Text Field, which supports rich text, which allows for a link to be a link. I then created an automation to migrate all the values of the URL field I was using to the new custom field.

Not ideal, but it's what I have for now until Jira undoes what it did to break this field.

Again:

* Don't use URL field type. 
* Use Text Field (multi-line)

Patrick Seamars_dnjzfh · Answer

Same experience where it once opened in a separate tab and now it's opening in the same tab.