Why is not inactive users included in the XML backup?

Question

We have a JIRA 6.3 system with Crowd in the back. Users come from Crowd which also is connected to an Microsoft Active Directory. When users are removed from JIRA group on LDAP, they disappear from Crowd and JIRA automatically de-activates the user account. So far so good.

We moved JIRA from one server to another via XML backup recently. Same JIRA version at the target system. (6.3)

What I realized is that JIRA did not transfer inactive users with XML backup. Of course old issues still contain their user names in Reporter or Assignee fields but you cannot see their fullnames by hovering over it with you mouse pointer, you cannot see them in Users list and naturally you cannot search using thier names.

I thought the default behavior for JIRA was to keep inactive users, since they are a part of system history, but not allow them to do anything or be used in anything again.

Is this the expected behavior? Is there a way to work around this?

Emre Toptancı [OBSS] · Answer

Hi Ann,

In fact our situation is a little bit different than you described.

JIRA is connected to Crowd and Crowd is connected to LDAP. We did not deactivate the user on Crowd, the user was removed from LDAP and both JIRA and Crowd were moved to a new server via XML backup.

After moving to a new server, JIRA can see the user values in existing issue fields buy they do not match a user in user directory. Old users are no longer visible in user directory in JIRA.

AnnWorley · Answer

Here is what I did, using JIRA 6.3.7:

* Deactivated a user in Crowd, made sure it synced over and showed as deactivated in JIRA.
* Backed up JIRA
* Restored to a fresh instance of JIRA 6.3.7

The user was still viewable in JIRA, when I hover I see the full name and the user shows in User Management as Inactive

I cannot @mention the user, which makes sense.

I wonder if something went wrong with your export/import, as the behavior is not as expected. Is it feasible for you to try again?