Trouble with the auto generated issue key after having imported issues manually from an Excel file

[Fay Kalavanti]

After having imported multiple issues from an excel into a JIRA project (cloud) we are facing a problem with the auto generated numbering (issue key). We set the numbering manually per our wish (for all the imported issues) and the last issue took the number 103. When we tried to create( Create c)  a new issue in this project, we realised that the newly created issue took the number 407. 

Could you please advise us why this is happening? Can we solve it somehow?

We would like to keep the sequence we have already set. It was expected to add/create a new issue and the issue key number should be 104 (instead of 407), if i am not mistaken. 

Thank you in advance!

[Jack Brickey]

numbering is sequential in Jira. My guess is that the last imported (created) resulted in 406 issue total then when you create a new issue it was given 407. You can verify this by a simple query to see how many issues exist in the project - project = myproject

[Fay Kalavanti]

As you may see in the attached image i have 90 issues in total in my project. The last issue imported from the excel took the ad-hoc number 103. When we tried to create by the usual process a new issue in this project it took the number 407 (see attached image).
I don't know if it has to do with the fact that the project called "TRSB" created as a clone of another existing project.

[Jack Brickey]

is it possible that someone deleted a bunch of issues? I have seen this being done as a result of undesirable import results. Deleting issues does not reset any issuekey counter.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

There is a known problem with mail handlers that can't handle incoming email - they can try to create a load of issues from email, fail, and don't create the new issue, but they do increment the project counter.  Could it be some broken emails?

[Fay Kalavanti]

Hi Nic. Thanks for your answer. I can assure you, this is not the case here. However Jack's answer regarding the deletion of numerous issues as result of undesirable import, is the most likely scenario. In this case, though i understand your claim that the issuekey counter does not reset each time that a deletion of one or more issues occur, still i don't get if what happened is the expected outcome (based on the software implementation) or there is possibility of bug. The issuekey counter in database level is obviously unique and sequential. Could you please advise me what is the expected outcome in the following case?

Jira give you the opportunity to manually import a butch of issues from an excel doc (e.g.) with the appropriate format/layout. Further to that, the user can select the desirable issues numbering (ad-hoc issue key set up) before the butch insertion.
So, we did tried to insert around 95 issues with fixed issue key number (to be honest the numbering was not totally sequential since the were some gaps between some numbers). The result we expected was to have 95 issues in total inserted and the last one should be TRSB-103 (due to the gap in some numbers). However, the insertion was not completed in only one attempt since we had multiple fails and we were forced to delete the whole bunch each time, in order to avoid losing the issue key (sequential numbering). When we finally managed to insert all of the issues in once, without any troubles, we decided to create/add a new issue in the project. We expected that the newly added issue should be TRSB-104 (since the last fixed issue key was TRSB-103) and instead of that we took TRSB-407. Based on what Jack said, i can understand that we probably deleted the whole bunch around 3 times and when we finally stabilised the project state, the newly added issue received its issue key based on the unique sequential id of the database. (by that time it was probably stopped to 406). 

Thank you in advance!

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I'm sorry it's not the email problem - I talked about it simply because it is a possible cause, but as you've ruled it out, I'm sorry it wasn't!  (because we'd know what it was and how to fix it)

Anyway, on to the next question.  The code in Jira is very simple when it comes to "next number".  It looks at a single field in the database and adds 1 to it.  It doesn't care about where the call comes from, who, why, or what.

If something says "create issue in project X", it looks at "highest number in X" and adds 1 to it.  If the creation then fails, it doesn't care - the highest number is the last one that you tried to create, not the highest you did!