DataAccessException when trying to save changes to Service Desk ticket

Esther Strom

We have our service desk set up to accept emails, and recently received one in Spanish. The ticket was created with no problem, but now whenever anyone tries to edit it in any way, they get the following error:

Exception occurred: com.atlassian.jira.exception.DataAccessException: org.ofbiz.core.entity.GenericEntityException: while inserting: [GenericEntity:ChangeItem][newvalue,null][field,description][oldstring,Ver mail en el navegador DESCUBRIENDO EL MUNDO DE LAS CARNES NUEVOS CURSOS PARA PROFESIONALES Nos ponemos en contacto con ustedes para informarles de la formación más próxima que tenemos disponible en la Escuela Superior de Hostelería esperando sea de su interés: DESCUBRIENDO EL MUNDO DE LAS CARNES 21, 22 y 23 de mayo. 16:30 - 20:30  Ver curso Se llevarán a cabo en las instalaciones de: ESCUELA SUPERIOR DE HOSTELERÃ�A Y TURISMO, Paseo Puerta del Ã�ngel, 5, 28011 Madrid Estos cursos pueden ser bonificados a través de los Seguros Sociales. Solicite más información: 911 92 17 18 

 

I've tried removing all of the special characters from the text (summary, description, and any comments), but it still will not allow me to save, and the error still shows the special characters. I've even tried completely clearing out the description and replacing it with one sentence in English, and the error still shows the Spanish text.

 

I'm the system admin, and we do have ScriptRunner, so if there's any way around this that way, I'm game.

 

ETA that this was the error message shown on the screen to the user. When I look at our logs, the error is huge (way too bit to print here), but the relevant bit seems to be this:

 

Caused by: org.ofbiz.core.entity.GenericDataSourceException: SQL Exception while executing the following:UPDATE jiraissue SET pkey=?, issuenum=?, PROJECT=?, REPORTER=?, ASSIGNEE=?, CREATOR=?, issuetype=?, SUMMARY=?, DESCRIPTION=?, ENVIRONMENT=?, PRIORITY=?, RESOLUTION=?, issuestatus=?, CREATED=?, UPDATED=?, DUEDATE=?, RESOLUTIONDATE=?, VOTES=?, WATCHES=?, TIMEORIGINALESTIMATE=?, TIMEESTIMATE=?, TIMESPENT=?, WORKFLOW_ID=?, SECURITY=?, FIXFOR=?, COMPONENT=? WHERE ID=? (Incorrect string value: '\xEF\xBF\xBDA Y...' for column 'DESCRIPTION' at row 1)
at org.ofbiz.core.entity.jdbc.SQLProcessor.executeUpdate(SQLProcessor.java:683)
at org.ofbiz.core.entity.GenericDAO.singleUpdate(GenericDAO.java:363)
... 255 more
Caused by: java.sql.SQLException: Incorrect string value: '\xEF\xBF\xBDA Y...' for column 'DESCRIPTION' at row 1
at com.mysql.jdbc.SQLError.createSQLException(SQLError.java:957)

Andy Heinzer

This error tells us that there is at least one character that has been input into Jira, that character cannot be stored to your SQL database.   There are a couple of possible causes with this.

1. The database collation or encoding is not correct for the database type.  Since you're using MySQL, I would want to make sure that your database was setup per the instructions in Connecting JIRA applications to MySQL.  The character set should be utf8 and the collate should be utf8_bin.  
2. There is another possible problem since you're using MySQL.  There is a documented limitation that MySQL is unable to store 4-byte characters.  See https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRASERVER-36135 for more details.   MySQL 5.5 and 5.6 do not really have a good workaround for this, but 5.7 might be able to help since it allows for the use of the utf8mb4 encoding.

Could you let us know what version of Jira and MySQL you are using?   I think this information will better help us advise you on the best course of action here.