Jira project won't allow adding groups, but some groups are already added.

[Christian]

This must be a bug, because it's worked fine in the past, but now the groups don't show-up and it won't let me add groups to the project...

But, there's are a few groups that I've added in the past, I just can't add an additional group, there's no other groups that show-up.

Under the People section of the Project Settings it even says "Search for names, groups or email addresses."  But now, it appears to try to create an email address from the group I'm trying to add, but it's a group name, so there's no email for it.

This used to work just fine in the recent past, so not sure what changed.  I'm a full Jira and Org admin, so I "should" be able to see every group, etc.

[Christian · Accepted solution]

UPDATE:  Ok, I ended-up spending another hour or two troubleshooting this and finally got the drop-down to autofill again... Whew!

But, it's not clear exactly what fixed it, I kept changing around my user groups, and ignored the yellow warning symbol about a user having multiple roles.  I needed admin users to be able to have User access admin product roles, but also be able to use Jira, which apparently requires them to have User roles.

Then there's something strange where, even if a user has full Jira admin and Org admin access, this drop-down feature will break, if there's not a lower-level access given (I guess), which is kinda strange in my opinion.

Does anyone know where a really good tutorial or guide is to Jira/Atlassian users and groups is, where it explains when your company needs a dozen custom groups to separate-out access per department, Managed accounts, and how to deal with default groups, etc.?

[Drew McPayne]

I finally found the answer to this issue in our system...

I have no idea why, but somehow the global system permissions have changed - only a single group of users was enabled in 'Browse users and groups'.

Goto

Settings Cog in  top right --> System

Global Permissions --> Add the relevant user groups to the permission

In my scenario, only Jira Developers were part of the permission, so admins couldn't browse groups etc in the user management groups view :O

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Christian 

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

When I start to type in the name of a group, initially it shows as an email address but then quickly switches to showing the group names that match. At the bottom of the list is the email address it was trying to construct.

Are you sure what you are typing in matches to a group that has access to the site?

[Christian]

Hi @Trudy Claspill 

Thanks for your reply and great to be in the Atlassian community.

What you describe and what your screenshot shows is exactly how it used to work, but atlas, for the last week the auto-filling stopped filling-in the groups or anything else besides the default email, and I've left it up waiting for a while and it never loads anything else as it used to.

See attached similar screenshot as you have done... This is one Jira project that is side-by-side with another Jira project that has groups starting with "app-", but as you can see from the screenshot it only has groups I added a month ago, but doesn't auto-fill the drop-down with any of my other app groups.

[Christian]

In fact... the moment I start entering anything into that "Names or emails" field, which used to take Group names without any issues... I get the following...

 Which appears to be some sort of GET request to a RESTful API endpoint for "groupuserpicker" but it results in an HTTP 403 error (forbidden).

• The "app-" groups have access to the Jira product.
• The "app-" groups are in other Jira projects (from when I could add them).
• I can add users from that group individually, if I copy the email address.
• Nothing special about advanced permissions, should be close to default.
• Nothing special about browser, just latest Chrome 126.0.6478.61 on macOS.

See attached screenshot from browser inspection panel...

[Trudy Claspill]

Have you tried the same steps in another browser application or a private browser window?

Do other admins with the same permissions have the same experience?

[Christian]

@Trudy Claspill 

• Yes, definitely other Jira and Org admins; that's what started me to create the first support ticket and this community question.
• I just tried a new Incognito/private window in Chrome, which does have the exact same issue/s.
• I just tried it in Firefox 127.0.2 and attached is its console errors...

[Blake McLeod]

Did you ever get to a resolution for this? We're experiencing the same issue. I was consolidating our groups, removed all the old ones but now I can't add the new user groups.

Very frustrating because now none of our staff can access the tickets...

[Christian]

@Blake McLeod 

Yes, it was basically a permissions issue, and was not intuitive, but I finally ended-up changing around the user groups enough and ignored the yellow warning symbols about a user having multiple roles (which in most systems you would avoid), and then added lower level permissions, even though these were admin users, or users with admin product roles.  So, even if a user has full Jira admin and/or Org admin access, this drop-down feature will break, so, if there's is not that lower-level access given it won't show.  Hope that helps!

[Blake McLeod]

Awesome, that fixed it for me too. I added every role under the sun to my account and I was able to finally add groups to my the project I was an owner of.

[Trudy Claspill]

This came up recently with a colleague of mine consulting for a client.

My colleague discovered that the person trying to add groups to roles in a project needed to have the global permission for Browse User and Groups.