Unable to remove a Parent from a ticket

[Jodi Jones]

I used to be able to remove a parent from a ticket by just clearing out the value in the field.  Now, I can clear it, but the minute the page refreshes, it returns.  I can change it to a different parent but I cannot clear it out.    

[Trudy Claspill · Accepted solution]

Hello @Jodi Jones 

Welcome to the Atlassian community.

What is the issue type of the affected issue? Does it happen to be a subtask?

If not a subtask, have you reviewed the issue history to see if it recorded the removal of the parent and then has another entry to show the parent being added back?

[Jodi Jones]

Hi @Trudy Claspill !  It's a Story.  The history was as follows:

1. 5/15 at 1207 - changed Parent from none to a value

2. 5/15 at 1208 - changed Issue Type from Bug to Story (maybe the conversion is the issue?)

3. 5/15 at 1208 - changed the Epic Link from a value to none (I did not do this intentionally)

4. The Epic was magically showing with no history of it being added back.  

5. Five entries of me trying to clear the Epic Link (but in actuality, I was updating the "Parent" field.  

6. An entry of me changing the Parent from one value to another.  IMPORTANT NOTE: It changes the PARENT when I'm assigning another one but is apparently trying to update the EPIC LINK all those times I tried to clear it out.  And at the exact same date/time of this change, and entry for the Epic Link shows it was changed from none to a value (same value I selected in the first sentence in this bullet.  

Hope that helps.  I think it's a bug.  

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @Jodi Jones 

So far I am not able to recreate your issue.

In my instance I can't edit the Epic Link field anymore. It just says "Replaced by Parent"

You should be able to remove an issue from an Epic by clicking into the Parent field and clicking the (x) to the right of the entry.

You should also be able to unlink a story from the Epic by going to the breadcrumbs and clicking on the pencil next to the Epic and then selecting Unlink.

Both of those methods work for me.

Is the Epic in the same project as the Story? If not, perhaps you don't have permissions in that other project to make changes to its issues.

[Jodi Jones]

@Trudy Claspill - That's the odd part.   I don't actually SEE nor am I EDITING the "Epic Link" field, yet the HISTORY says I am.  

Clicking the x to the right of the entry is what I was trying each time and it did not work.  It just reappeared upon saving.  

The breadcrumb method I hadn't tried but that did work.  

The Epic is in the same Project as the Story.  

I just tried removing an epic from another ticket and it worked fine.  I'm wondering if it was the fact that ticket was changed from a Bug to a Story.  Either way, the issue with that one ticket I solved with your breadcrumb recommendation.  I REALLY appreciate it!  It was driving me crazy!

[Trudy Claspill]

That is very odd. The issue type should not make a difference.

Jira may still be keeping Epic Link and Parent synchronized, which would be why it is clearing the Epic Link field when you clear the Parent field.

[Jodi Jones]

That's kind of what I am thinking too.  I'm thinking the wires got crossed with the conversion because it's the only thing that explains why it works for my other tickets, but not that specific one.  

[Toby A Rogers]

Was this actually solved.

I have exactly the same situation, in trying to remove a parent from an issue. I remove it, but on refresh it reappears.

Toby

[Jodi Jones]

@Toby A Rogers - Hi!  The ONLY way I could remove it permanently was to use the breadcrumb section (the top, just above the title of the issue/bug), hover over the epic until the pencil appeared, and click "unlink parent".  

[Jeanna Knowles]

@Kate West-Walker I am actually experiencing this issue today. I have tried the bread crumbs with no success. I have actually changed to a different Parent and then back to my original with no success- like others I see in history it says that I am editing both fields - Parent and Epic Link- however I am not able to click on Epic Link to make any edits.

This happened when I added a new issue type and then changed it from a Story to Spike.

There were a total of 3 issues, 2 in the sprint, in a Done state. They were changed in the sprint view. The 3rd was done in the Epic view without issue.

Further testing- I also can not go to the epic and choose add child, add existing story. If I try to add it there it shows for a split second and then is gone.

[Kate West-Walker]

Hi all, 

I'm a developer on the team that brought in the new parent field, and I'm trying to understand this issue of not being able to clear the parent. I haven't been able to reproduce this yet, but if you have any further information on how to reproduce it, that would be really helpful.

In the meantime though, I wanted to share some information about how the issue history works and why you see changes to both Epic Link and Parent when you have only updated the Parent.

As was mentioned above, 'Epic Link' was an old representation of the association between an issue and its epic, and 'Parent' is the new one. At present, the changes to Parent are being synchronised with Epic Link and both are published to the issue history, because many customers and app vendors are still relying on the issue history. So, the issue history appears to have double entries at present for backwards compatibility reasons, to allow extra time to stop relying on this. We will stop publishing the Epic Link issue history entries soon. 

Thanks,

Kate West-Walker

[Jodi Jones]

@Kate West-Walker - Hi!  Thanks for the explanation.  As far as the steps to reproduce, I'm not really sure.  The only difference I could see about that one item was that it had been converted from a bug to a story - but we do that often. I haven't run into the issue again and removing it at the breadcrumb level worked.  I just chalked it up to an anomaly.  BUT if I see it again, I'll come back and report on it.  Thanks!

[Jessica Calabretta]

@Kate West-Walker  I'm having this issue consistently. Reach out to me via email and I will get you more information.