Can't bulk edit tickets to change assignee (at least one issue has a status that forbids editing)

[Doug Varn]

I'm trying to delete a few users from the system but can't since they are the assignee or reporter of various tickets. I tried bulk editing them, but I'm getting the option as "n/a" with note "You do not have permission to edit the selected 105 issues or at least one issue has a status that forbids editing."

It would be painful to manually update 100's of tickets. What can I do?

[Adam Saint-Prix · Accepted solution]

If you are using the JIRA default workflow, this is expected behavior. The defaults don't allow you to edit closed issues because of an explicit condition that restricts editing of closed issues.

You can work around this though. There are some examples of how to use workflow properties on a specific step so that you can edit the issue as an admin, even though it's closed. Jobin describes how to do so pretty well here:

http://www.j-tricks.com/1/post/2011/02/permissions-based-on-workflow-status.html

[Doug Varn]

thanks, i went ahead and bulk re-opened them all, did my reporter/assignee changes as needed, then bulk closed them again. kind of worky, but well, it worked. ;)

[Adam Saint-Prix]

Oh well. Brute force works as well. By the way, I found my more descriptive post from a while back on how to do this. You might consider adding this in to your workflow next time you have to bulk edit closed issues:

https://answers.atlassian.com/questions/49747/what-is-your-most-valuable-jira-trick/50612

[LucasA]

Hi Doug,

I suggest you to bulk edit only a few of the 105 (for instance, try bulk-editing 20 per time) until you discover what issue can't be modified.

Best regards,
Lucas Timm

[Doug Varn]

thanks, do you think it's a particular issue, or issue type or status?

[LucasA]

Hi Doug,

Hard to say that. Since you're moving issues from an user to another, I'm assuming you have issues across many projects. This may be the root cause, since the project roles (for this case, permission scheme and issue security scheme) may vary from a project to another.

Best regards,
Lucas Timm

[Doug Varn]

digging now, it appears Closed tickets can't be edited. is that expected?

[Doug Varn]

Thanks Lucas. It seems now that I simply can't change reporter or assignee for closed issues... neither in bulk nor in standard Jira ticket view. This seems odd. Is it something odd we've managed to configure Jira as or is it the default? Either way, that seems to be my issue.