Excessive white space in Text format release notes!

[Martin Wallace]

We have had an issue with the release notes generation ever since we started using Jira many years ago.  The HTML version of the notes are fine.  However, we like to include a text file with our product updates and we generate this by copying the text version of the notes in Jira.

The problem is that the text version seems to display lots of carriage returns between the issues.  

Image here:  https://ibb.co/hMm2wv

It's easy to fix - we just cut and paste then delete the space, but it's still really annoying.  Is this a bug or have we got something set up wrong.

We are on version 7.3.2 of Jira but this behaviour has been present across many versions we have updated from.  We are doing nothing custom and are just using all default behaviour.

Anyone have a clue what the issue might be?

[Martin Wallace · Accepted solution]

Confirmed!

The issue is an extra blank line in the text release notes template file that is provided as part of the standard Jira installation.

If line 40 (a blank line) is removed from the following file:

<jira-application-dir>/WEB-INF/classes/templates/jira/project/releasenotes/releasenotes-text.vm

then the release notes are formatted correctly.

I confirmed this by updating to latest Jira (v7.5.0) and the issue was still present, so amended the template as above, restarted and the error went away.

How would I report this as a bug for resolution?

[Andy Heinzer]

Hi Martin,

Thanks for letting us know about this issue.   I am afraid that our customers no longer have the ability to directly report bugs in the JIRA projects of our jira.atlassian.com site.  So I have gone ahead and created a new bug on your behalf based off your findings here.  I would recommend watching https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JSWSERVER-16110 for any future updates on this issue.

Our development team will tend to prioritize bug differently depending on their severity and a number of other factors as described in our Atlassian bug fix policy.  So we really don't know if or when this might be fixed, but at least by documenting your steps on this post and in that bug, I think we can help provide some guidance for anyone else that might come across this issue.

Thanks,

Andy

[Martin Wallace]

Thanks Branden.

Not using any addon for release notes - just the built in release notes functionality that you linked to.

Have tested in Chrome and IE and same behaviour.

Have also checked the format templates and all look to be in place as they should.

However:

What I'm suspecting - but I am no expert (not even an amatuer!) on the templating language - is that the loop that generates the notes is inserting an additional line for issuetypes, even when they have no issues, due to the extra line between the two #end statements as shown in pic:

https://ibb.co/ccfiUQ

This is in the file:

<jira-application-dir>/WEB-INF/classes/templates/jira/project/releasenotes/releasenotes-text.vm

[somethingblue]

Hi Martin,

Are you you using an add-on such as Release Notes generator or are you using the built in release notes functionality?

• Does this happen in all browsers?
• Does this happen if you generate the release notes with JIRA in Safe Mode?

I would also check out the Creating Relase Notes article and verify the Format Template in your instance.

Cheers,

Branden