Corrupt index or content

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

 If this were backed by Confluence, I'd be looking at the index for this problem, but it's not, so I don't know where to start.

I'm starting to see questions with answers and comments that don't make any sense as they're out of context.

The one that jumped out at me was found by doing the following:

I went to https://community.atlassian.com/t5/JIRA-questions/JIRA-Cloud-Issues-still-not-shown-in-backlog-after-being-mapped/qaq-p/461051

I wrote an answer, and went back to have a look later, and it all looked fine.  Then went to bed.

Got up this morning, and as the site is still not sending me emails I thought I'd check the question manually to see if there was any response, so I clicked "refresh" again.

This took me to

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/JIRA-questions/Dashboard-gadget-to-report-historical-status/qaq-p/116615/comment-id/192145#M192145

So, wrong question, which looks a bit odd, but the url has changed, so I'll happily blame a cache or something.

But, read the question.  The question is the same as the one I was answering last night.  The comments are from 2 years ago.

That suggests old questions are being destroyed, overwritten with data from new ones.

[Sam Hall]

Hi Nic,

I have seen similar behaviour and reported to Atlassian.

I think it might be something to do with the comment id portion of the URL.

Compare (recent question, but shows some answers for another question from 2014!):

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/JIRA-questions/Issue-security-level/qaq-p/459638/comment-id/48731#M48731

With ('clean' link to the same question, which shows the thread properly):

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/JIRA-questions/Issue-security-level/qaq-p/459638

And here's the 'clean' link to the question from which the 2014 answers come from in this instance:

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/JIRA-questions/Jira-6-2-3-SQL-exception-on-start/qaq-p/116007

The question and answers at the 2nd link in your post above actually looked OK for me (question and answers all from 2014, except your answer on there from an hour ago ). Does it still show broken for you?

[Sam Hall]

Also, here are the 'clean' links to both questions you mentioned:

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/JIRA-questions/Dashboard-gadget-to-report-historical-status/qaq-p/116615

and

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/JIRA-questions/JIRA-Cloud-Issues-still-not-shown-in-backlog-after-being-mapped/qaq-p/461051

Do both look OK for you? If so, that might at least reassure us that old questions aren't being totally destroyed. 

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Ah, good, yes, they both look right on those links.

[Monique vdB]

I thought this was a bug created by moving content but it looks like it may be happening in other contexts.  I will update our ticket on this. 

Glad the "clean" links still work -- gives me hope it's fixable without the Frankenconversations being permanent.

[heyliam]

I'm looking into this now, y'all. I haven't nailed down a root cause, but I've confirmed that this is a rendering bug and not a data mutation bug. In every case, the original thread is preserved, and as far as most users can tell, nothing weird has happened.

Buuut, those of us with a link that includes a `comment-id` parameter see a nasty Cronenbergian thread amalgam. If y'all come across other contexts in which this misbehavior pops up, kindly post it here. More data will help.

Thanks!

[Monique vdB]

I just added an "Atlassian Team" lozenge for you so they know you're with us and not just some rando. :D

[heyliam]

I am an Atlassian, but I am also a proud rando.

[Sam Hall]

Is this Cronenbergian thread amalgam problem officially fixed now?

[heyliam]

There are a few different contexts in which this behavior rears its ugly head, and right now the most egregious one is patched. You may still see some thread amalgams, but they should be far less prevalent.

To address the other possible thread bugs (and make sure this never happens again) I've got a test environment dedicated to exploring the root causes of these bugs and squashing them with prejudice. Two pieces of good news:

1. At this point we know exactly what's happening and we're near a complete solution
2. Squashing these bugs has given us a better idea of how our threads ought to be organized, and there are under-the-hood and UX improvements slated for release along with them

Stay tuned; there are a few things nearing release at once, and we're trying to prioritize and expedite them as much as we safely can. I'll report back here when we can consider this bug well and truly dead.

[heyliam]

The Frankenthreads have now been vanquished.

You'll also notice that permalinking is enabled for every message, allowing you to reference a specific message in the context of its thread. Email notifications should respect this new scheme, and it'll get a lot easier to tell where you're going from links therein.

Thanks to all of you who reported this and sleuthed out its weirdly-shaped parameters.

[Theresa Marwah]

Thanks Liam, Nic and Sam!  I appreciate your collaboration- Cheers