full text search is not working for some words or issues in Jira?

Question

I have multiple projects in Jira with paid account, so far I found about full text search with the input box on the top right corner:

1. Working for Description, but NOT working for Comments.

I have checked https://community.atlassian.com/forums/App-Central-articles/How-to-search-comments-in-Jira-without-JQL/ba-p/2572127 ,

However, I don't want to create filter, too complex for our sales people. I want ad-hoc/casual search, so when I input some words in the input box on the top right corner, the tickets of any project could come up, with the words in the comments.

Does Jira support this?

Dwight Holman · Answer

Sometime in 2024, Atlassian changed the search box behavior. This now generates a JQL query using textfields - where previously it used text. As noted by Charlie, this means it does not search in comments - which is confusing for users.

There are some suggestions in the backlog about this:

* JRACLOUD-84332 The issue navigator search box doesn't search comments
* JRACLOUD-85450 Include issue comments in "textfields" search
* JRACLOUD-93748 Make "textfields~" JQL field to search for Comments and Worklogs

The workaround is to click the JQL button at the right, and change the JQL where it references textfields:

textfields ~ "keywords*"

change it to:

text ~ "keywords*"

If your search has more conditions you can still change 'textfields' to 'text'

Charlie Misonne · Answer

Hi @Zijian Huang and welcome to the Atlassian community!

When you search there on the top right and hit enter you will see what Jira is actually searching for:

textfields ~ "hello*"

This is the documentation of "textfields". It will search for summary, description, environment and custom text fields but NOT for comments.

I'm afraid you can not change the behavior of the quick search to enable comment searching.