How can I save an issue without changing the reporter if he's is not currently a user?

Question

Hi, I am running into a situation where I need to update older issues in JIRA and where the original reporter is no longer a user (access removed, left the company, etc.). The issue is that I cannot save changes unless I change the reporter to an existing user and this is ridiculous.

Just because that user no longer exists, it doesn't change the fact that he had originally created this issue and we lose this piece of information whenever we need to edit an older issue. As long as we don't change the issue, the original reporter is still indicated and JIRA works fine, so why do I have to change it when making an update?

Is this a product issue or should I talk to my JIRA administrators so that they turn on/off a setting to fix this?

Thanks for the help!

Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted Answer

There's nothing you can fix here - the users should not have been deleted.  JIRA won't let you delete users if they are the reporter or assignee of the issue, so someone has bypassed the proper way to do it

You'll need to recreate the users (but as inactive ones with dummy email addresses), then you'll be able to retain the right settings.