Unable to delete workflow due to umlaut characters

Question

When creating a new Project using JIRA's creating wizard, one is prompted with several project type options to choose from (Simple Issue Tracking, Project Management, ..., JIRA Default Schemes). If any but the last option is chosen, a new workflow definition for that project is created automatically by JIRA.

This can cause problems in non English JIRA instances because the name of the newly created workflow is taken from the translated project type name and the workflow name is needed to do any operations on the workflow in the Admin panel (under Issues -> Workflows). Since JIRA can't deal with umlaut characters very well, I got the following error while trying to manage the workflow in question:

Workflow with name ''WIA: Arbeitsablauf fÃ¼r die einfache Verfolgung von VorgÃ¤ngen'' does not exist.

How can the workflow be administered if JIRA does not even allow to change the name based only on the ID of the workflow?

pWestrich · Accepted Answer

The "solution" is to change the name of the workflow in the Database and avoid using any project type options but the JIRA Default Scheme in the future:

* BACKUP your JIRA instance!
* Disassociate the workflow with any project (making the workflow inaktive)
* Disassociate the workflow with any workflow scheme
* Update the workflow directly in the database:

UPDATE jiraworkflows 
SET workflowname = 'your_safe_name' 
WHERE id IN (SELECT id FROM jiraworkflows WHERE name LIKE '%your_workflow_name%')

* Proceed in similar manner for the jiradraftworkflows if any drafts exist

* Proceed in similar manner for the os_wfentry if applicable
* Restart JIRA

Volá, you should now be able to normally operate with the workflows!

Please also vote for https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRA-33299 to have this issue fixed by Atlassian!