Why is random text being attached to issues as an image file?

[Angelique Manley]

I’ve received several JIRA notifications where someone has (unknowingly) attached an image to some of my “issues” (ie. Capabilities, Epics, Stories). In all cases, the person who added the image attachment had no idea that they've done it. It seemingly appears JIRA had done it for them automatically (as though it's some sort of feature within JIRA). In most, if not all cases, it was an image of text (presumably from their clipboard?). What causes confusion is that it’s usually something completely unrelated to the issue where the image was attached.

[Earl McCutcheon]

Hello @Angelique Manley ,

Thanks for reaching out, and it looks like it was more than likely an accidental clip board paste to the issue.

It looks like you are on Jira Cloud, and in Jira Cloud when you have an issue open pressing Ctrl+V (win) or Cmd+V (mac) will paste any attachment contents of the clipboard to the issue, so if a user had recently copied an image to clipboard, or hit print screen on the keyboard, then while having the Browser window in focus when attempting to paste the attachment will be added.

I've done this before by mistake when I was attempting a copy of text from an issue but missed the Cmd+C to copy and hit the Cmd+V to paste as the V is directly next to the C on the keyboard, and just had an oops moment, and it is really easy to miss the upload if your not looking.

Run this scenario by your users to see if it lines up with the actions they were performing, and some additional details on the image attachment options capabilities can be seen in the documentation here: "Attaching files and screenshots to issues" 

Regards,
Earl

[Gino De Bel]

what is described here is an issue with copy/paste

but it seems to be impossible to copy/paste a text in a text field (eg : description) when a attachment field is available. The copy/paste action will always attach is it whether you are in the attachment field or not. Correct ? 

is there a way to avoid this ? 

[Angelique Manley]

@Earl McCutcheonI can tell you exactly how to reproduce this issue.

1. Navigate to where you are viewing an issue in Jira (Jira Cloud specificially).
2. From an Excel spreadsheet copy (CTRL+C) the value from a field.
3. Return to Jira Cloud, where you were viewing the issue in #1 above, and in the main navigation Search field paste (CTRL+V) the value you copied from the spreadsheet and hit enter.
4. Jira redirects you to whereever your search result takes you.
5. Return to the issue you were viewing in #1 and you'll see an image has been attached to that issue that is identical to the text you copied from the spreadsheet.

This is very common behavior at my company...someone copying an value from a spreadsheet and pasting it into the Search box. I would not consider this user error by any stretch of the imagination. However, I would most definitely consider it an "unintended feature" (aka bug).

[Earl McCutcheon]

Hi @Angelique Manley ,

Thanks for the clarification and extra details, and this behavior is a Bug we are tracking in the following Bug report:

• https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-72383

This one is not yet in development but was recently increased in priority with the recent update to the new issue view back in March, as there is no longer an option to disable the new view.  So we should see some work on this one really soon and I recommend adding yourself as a watcher to get updates on the status to get a notification when the fix is rolling out.

Regards,
Earl