Problems when importing a snapshot into another instance

[Salim Hammar]

Hi

I  created a jira project snapshot with configuration manager on instance A and i want to import it into instance B.

The import on target platform fails because we don't have the same plugins on both platforms.

Dou you have a workaround in order to import the project succesfully  ?

Thanks in advance !

[Radek Dostál]

The workaround is to have the same plugin versions.

I don't know configuration manager, but I know Project Configurator (they're overlapping each other a lot.. a lot).

When you do Jira xml backup, it contains <PluginVersion> property. If you are importing a custom field, which belongs to that plugin, it must have the same version - otherwise, Jira cannot validate this, because the plugin version mismatch could cause an error - each plugin version can differ, and most importantly - the db structure and import handler can be different.

Each <CustomFieldValue> refers to <CustomField>, which in turn refers to pluginkey attribute, which in turn refers to <PluginVersion>.

If you know that the data is safe to import between the different plugin versions, and that there is no difference in the way the plugin handles the data (do you really know though), then you could modify whichever file Configuration Manager generates (I imagine either xml or json), and replace the 'version' attribute in <PluginVersion> for that specific plugin to the version you have in your target environment.

Then again, I would only recommend doing this if you know for sure that there is no difference between the db structure and how the plugin itself handles .xml imports for it's own field values. In all other cases, you want to have the same plugin version on both instances.

The default Atlassian documentation for this type of error is to update your plugin to the same version as your destination environment, and generate a new backup. Note that downgrading the plugin is not mentioned, not recommended, and not guaranteed - there is no "plugin downgrade" task, there's only a "plugin upgrade" way. If you go against this - you must know or test that whatever changes or downgrades you do, that everything works. This largely depends on specific plugin changes between those version, specificically, the db structure, and whatever .xml restore support the plugin provides between individual versions.

This might be slightly different with Configuration Manager since I am mostly versed in Project Configurator, but it will not be too different. Get the same versions if you can.