Users Exporting JIRA Filters Recieve a Blank Export in Excel

Bryan Trummer
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July 13, 2016

I have a few users who when exporting a JIRA Filter receive a blank export in Excel. However, when myself and a few other users export to Excel it works fine with data and all. The major difference I am noticing is that the users that are not able to get any data on the export are using Excel version 16.0.4405.1000; while the users that are able to export data correctly are using Excel version 16.0.4390.1000. My main concern that the Excel update was pushed across company wide and that this issue may affect everyone shortly. Is there a work around for this that any on is aware or a way to resolve? Any help is greatly appreciated.

7 answers

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24 votes
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Bryan Trummer
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July 18, 2016

I was able to resolve this. With the Excel update it does an auto default on a setting that prevents the data from exporting. Do the following to resolve this:

  1. Open an Excel sheet
  2. Navigate to File -> Options -> Trust Center -> Trust Center Settings -> Protected View
  3. Un-Check "Enable Protected View for file originating from the Internet".

 

Brian Copfer July 20, 2016

Bingo - thanks!

Jennifer Flora Black July 21, 2016

Thank you! Disabling Protected View allowed me to open the exported JIRA search results in Excel 2016 / Office 365. Before I disabled it, Excel wasn't even giving an error. It just looked like the file wouldn't open.

Greg Franklin July 27, 2016

You saved the day for me!

Kim Hyung July 27, 2016

You save me 10 days to working on my JIRA server

Oh my god

Simon Bauer July 28, 2016

Thanks, had the same problem! Very quick solution.

Mary Kingston August 2, 2016

Thank you SO much, this had me really stumped!

RY August 4, 2016

JIRA Cloud (OnDemand) has recently made this unnecessary by now providing a CSV export, which works for Excel 2010 without disabling the protected view.

Rob Jansen August 4, 2016

Thanks Bryan. This indeed solved my problem.

Viv Lloyd August 10, 2016

Great catch. Thank you for taking the time to resolve this issue.

 

Deleted user August 10, 2016

thank you Bryan!

Bruce Cane August 16, 2016

A life saver. Thanks for passing this along.

6 votes
Roland July 27, 2016

We appear to have had some success by setting our JIRA URL as a trusted site in Internet Explorer.

Steps:

  • Open IE
  • Click the Cog icon (top right of screen)
  • Select Internet Options
  • Select the Security tab
  • Click "Trusted Sites"
  • Click "Sites"
  • Enter the URL to your JIRA instance.
  • Click Close
  • Click OK
  • Close down IE
  • Re-Open IE
  • Log into Jira.
  • Export an issue filter to Excel
  • You should now see that the Excel file opens OK.

You can configure the above changes with Group Policy (which we did - search for "Site to Zone Assignment List" to see how to do this).  Please note that we found that some machines had to be restarted for the fix to take effect even after Group Policy had been updated by issuing a gpupdate command.

Another workaround appears to be to "unblock" the file.  It will then open as normal.

Steps:

  • Right click on the Excel file that you are having problems opening.
  • Look at the bottom of the "General" tab, and you should see a message "This file came from another computer and might be blocked to help protect this computer".
  • Click "Unblock"
  • Click "OK"
  • You should now be able to open the file as normal in Excel.

We found that after making the changes to the settings in Internet Explorer that the Excel files downloaded from JIRA did not get the "blocked" status (presumably as they're from a trusted zone).

Hope this helps someone else.

 

Mikal Peterson August 4, 2016

Thanks! Adding our JIRA instance to Trusted Sites via Group Policy is definitely preferable to disabling Protected View.

Also note that you will need to re-export any excel doc after the Trusted Site is added.

4 votes
Midori
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July 19, 2016

You may want to replace the built-in Excel exporter with the Better Excel Plugin, that produces actual XLSX files, not an HTML file that is named as .xls.

Using Excel's native fileformat is a major difference with several advantages, and will never confuse Excel.

3 votes
Tom Bridges July 13, 2016

Got the same issue with Excel 2010. This Micorsoft Security Update seems to have broken excel opening the export: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3115322

 

Renaming the .XLS file .HTML allows it to be opened in a web browser.

 

Rasied this issue with Atlassian: https://support.atlassian.com/servicedesk/customer/portal/22/JSP-271208

Bryan Trummer
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July 14, 2016

Thank you for the info Tom. Hopefully this gets resolved quickly so my operators can combine our filters in one Excel doc. I will have them try the file extension rename.

Benny Varughese July 19, 2016

Hi Tom,

Thanks for reporting this to atlassian. Unfortunately i can't access this support issue. Is there a public issue available where this problem is being handled?

Derek Mengwasser July 22, 2016

Hi Tom,

Thanks for all of the information you have provided on this problem and raising an issue with Atlassian. As Benny stated, I am not able to access this support issue either and was wondering the same question if a public issue is available or is there a way to gain access to the ticket you created?

Thanks.

Jérémie Faucher-Goulet July 26, 2016

Yep, can't access the ticket either

2 votes
Jérémie Faucher-Goulet July 26, 2016

Atlassian ticket:

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRA-61891

 

They intend to fix this in JIRA 7.2 by replacing the Export to Excel feature by Export to CSV.

Randall Robertson
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July 27, 2016

Thanks for noting that! Great choice for handling this better, I think.

0 votes
Andy Jordan September 15, 2016

I found that I needed to change the settings in Excel : Trust Center : File Block Settings to allow Open and Save for Excel 97* / 95* workbooks which allows selected files of this type to be opened in Protected View.

0 votes
RY July 18, 2016

Same problem here: Exporting JIRA filter results to an Excel (97-2003 .xls) file worked fine for opening in Excel 2010 until July 13th, when it started opening as blank.

Following up on the .XLS to .HTML renaming workaround: Opening the .HTML spreadsheet in Internet Explorer (e.g., IE-11), then right-clicking > "Export to Microsoft Excel" worked for opening the spreadsheet in Excel 2010 with the data.

 

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