New Users Cannot Search or Assign Existing Users in Jira Cloud

Thisira Jayasekara

As an admin, how do fix it

Arkadiusz Wroblewski

Hello @Thisira Jayasekara 

Yep, this is usually not a “new user” bug, it’s permissions / group membership. Older users often sit in groups/roles that have the right global + project permissions, and new users don’t.

First check the global permission (this affects the user picker everywhere)

Go to Jira settings - System - Global permissions

Find Browse users and groups

Make sure the group your new users are in (often something like jira-software-users / jira-users / your default access group) is listed there
If they don’t have this, the Assignee/Reporter/user picker will show “no options” or won’t return results.

Then check the project permissions (this affects assigning)
Open the impacted project - Project settings - Permissions
Ensure the users (via group or project role) have:

Assignable user and Assign issues
If either is missing, they may see users but still can’t assign, or they can’t be picked as assignee at all.

If this is a team-managed project
Project settings - Access
Make sure the users are added to the project and their role allows assigning issues.

Have a great Day