"Blocks" and "Is Blocked By" Inverting Themselves

Greg Turnipseed January 30, 2023

The behavior described in this thread is what I'm seeing, but it's happening all on its own. Things were fine up until January 20th, and then somehow the linking configuration got changed. The outward description should be "blocks" but was actually "is blocked by". This was reversed only for the "Blocks" link type; all of the others still had things the right way around, which seemed to me like a potential smoking gun. I asked the other admins if anybody had changed anything, but nobody had. So, I went in and manually switched it back to the way it should be.

Later that day (or maybe the following Monday, the 23rd--I forget exactly when), the relationships were reversed again, and I thought maybe Atlassian had broken something and then quickly patched it to fix it, so I again swapped the relationships, thinking that now the issue must be resolved.

However, one of my team just notified me that the relationships are once again backwards as of about an hour ago.

Unfortunately, the audit logs do not include changes to issue links (I checked after I changed them, and sure enough, nothing), so I have no idea how this is getting changed. Does anybody know why this is happening? Is Atlassian messing with something?

The only other thing I can think of is that our instance has been integrated into BigPicture (which I'm not very familiar with) for a few months. Does anybody else have experience with BigPicture and know whether it could be swapping things on us? For the record, we haven't had any issues with this prior to January 20th, so it seems weird that either Atlassian or BigPicture would suddenly start doing this, but I'm not sure what else could be causing it.

Thank you,

-Greg

5 answers

1 vote
Greg Turnipseed February 9, 2023

As an update, I've reached out to Appfire, and their developers are looking into the issue. No other news to report for now, but just wanted to let everyone know it's still in progress.

Greg Turnipseed February 10, 2023

We have another update: Appfire has determined that it is a bug affecting version BigPicture version 8.11 (but apparently not 8.10.1). They have opened a bug against it and are working on it. They said there is no ETA for when it will be fixed, but the fix will automatically be patched in cloud instances once it's available.

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Greg Turnipseed February 28, 2023

Hey, all. Just posting an update since it looks like Appfire is actively working the issue. As of this morning, the issue is in QA review, so hopefully we'll have a fix soon!

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Greg Turnipseed March 7, 2023

We have another update. The fix is now awaiting release, and for me personally, I haven't seen the issue occur in a few days, so hopefully it's just about patched!

Greg Turnipseed March 20, 2023

It looks like the issue is now closed in Appfire's system, so hopefully there shouldn't be any more issues.

Ryan Flores March 22, 2023

The issue still persists. I just noticed it again today. 

We performed a test a few weeks ago where we removed the BLOCKS Soft Dependency and the issue never happened. We let it run like that for two weeks and didn't have any issues. Once we saw that the bug was supposedly fixed, we restored the Soft Dependency and noticed today that the bug resurfaced. We don't know exactly when the bug decided to show face, but all I know after noticing it today that this still isn't fixed.

Greg Turnipseed March 22, 2023

I discovered this yesterday, as well, and mentioned it to the Appfire rep. I went in and fixed it by hand again, and at least as of now, it hasn't changed since yesterday. Prior to that, I hadn't seen the issue occur for several weeks (while the fix was supposedly still waiting for QA), but then it showed up again after the issue was closed. Very frustrating.

Ryan Flores March 22, 2023

@Greg Turnipseed I agree. Very frustrating indeed. 

Paweł Wrona March 22, 2023

The problem occurred on 18/03/2023 while logging JFR (Java Flight Recorder).

Pablo Devoto March 28, 2023

Hi, I have users who encountered this same problem today, Last Friday the relationships were fine and today they appeared inverted

Pablo Devoto March 31, 2023

any news about this bug?

Greg Turnipseed March 31, 2023

I mentioned this thread to the rep I've been talking to at Appfire, and he said that the fix  has been released but might not have been rolled out to all locations, yet. You guys might want to reach out to them directly if the issue is still persisting for you. For me personally, I haven't seen the issue again since March 21st.

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Luke Towers April 5, 2023

Hi @Greg Turnipseed  Any update on this issue from Appfire? We are also having the same issue with our instance.

We do not use BigPicture but we do use Big Gantt from the same vendor. 

Version: 1.1.16-AC

Greg Turnipseed April 6, 2023

Hi, @Luke Towers . I haven't used Big Gantt, so I can't speak to whether the issues are related or not. My advice would be to reach out to them directly.

Jennifer Hall May 2, 2023

it's also an issue in BigGantt as we use it and are experiencing this issue. We do not use BigPicture. 

Luke Towers May 2, 2023

@Jennifer Hall I raised this with Appfire and they created a bug which is now in QA Review. You can access below but need to be incognito. 

https://jira.bigpicture.one/browse/ONE-65081

1 vote
Richard Wurden February 2, 2023

Having the same issue.

Greg Turnipseed February 3, 2023

Nice to know it's not just me! I was beginning to wonder...

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Richard Wurden February 3, 2023

If you find a solution to this on BigPicture side, please let me know. Atlassian seems to be reporting out the status correctly.

Richard Wurden February 3, 2023

@Greg Turnipseed It looks like our default on Jira side may have been inverted, somehow. The default setting for "outward description" should have been "blocks" but our was "is blocked by":


https://confluence.atlassian.com/adminjiraserver/configuring-issue-linking-938847862.html

Greg Turnipseed February 3, 2023

@Richard Wurden The issue we're experiencing is that our configuration was right when we started but then became reversed on January 20th. I fixed it, and it broke itself again a few days later. I fixed it again, and it broke itself again. So, while it's possible the issue might be a backwards configuration for some, the specific issue I'm seeing is that it keeps changing making itself wrong despite being right originally (or set right after discovering the issue).

Richard Wurden February 3, 2023

Makes sense. Yea I don't know what caused it to change on Jira side. We didn't intentionally change it either.

Ryan Flores March 22, 2023

The issue is caused by the Big Picture Soft Dependency setting.

0 votes
Paweł Wrona March 9, 2023

I've noticed that each change in the inverting of tickets results after I re-start Jira. I have Jira version 9.4.1

Greg Turnipseed March 9, 2023

We're using Jira Cloud here; The issue for me is definitely BigPicture, and the developer is pretty close to having a fix rolled out. I haven't seen the issue crop up again for a few weeks now. I'm not sure whether there might be an additional issue causing what you're seeing?

Paweł Wrona March 10, 2023

We are using Jira Server.

0 votes
Ryan Flores February 21, 2023

We noticed this issue happening as well on Feb 2, 2023. As soon as I noticed it, we quickly fixed the issue on the Issue Linking page. At the time, we assumed that someone on our team accidentally reversed the labels or a bug with Atlassian. On Feb 17, 2023, I noticed that the Blocks type got reversed again. That made me realize that it couldn't be anyone of the team since nothing was showing up in the Audit Logs. I decided to open a support ticket with Atlassian, asking them to help identify who or what was causing the issue.

Atlassian replied back to inform me that an API call made by BigPicture was causing this issue. This is what showed up in the logs on Feb 13, 2023 (reformatted for improved readability).

{
"eventName": "jira.public.rest.api.call",
"resourceName": "IssueLinkTypeResource",
"resourceMethodName": "updateIssueLinkType",
"httpMethodName": "PUT",
"httpResponseCode":200,
"path": "/api/{v:2|3|latest}/issueLinkType/{issueLinkTypeId}",
"pathPrefix": "",
"fullPath": "/api/3/issueLinkType/{issueLinkTypeId}",
"connectAddon": true,
"connectAddonKey": *"eu.softwareplant.bigpicture",*
"userAgent": "Java/11.0.17",
"clientType": "CONNECT_SERVER_TO_SERVER",
"executionTimeMillis": 86,
"data": {},
"exceptionClassname": null
}

 

After being provided that useful bit of information, that's when I discovered this thread, as well as 2251345.

 

Appfire really needs to fix this ASAP; otherwise when we link our issues, everything is going to be linked backwards moving forward and it going to cause confusion later down the road once the issue has been resolved. I guess in the interim, I'll have to check the Issue Linking daily and fix it manually until Appfire resolves the issue.

 

Does anyone know if it's possible to downgrade to 8.10.1?

0 votes
Kian Stack Mumo Systems
Community Leader
Community Leader
Community Leaders are connectors, ambassadors, and mentors. On the online community, they serve as thought leaders, product experts, and moderators.
February 3, 2023

@Greg Turnipseed @Richard Wurden, I would raise tickets with Atlassian as this is now affecting at least 3 separate instances. https://support.atlassian.com/contact/. The person in the original thread is seeing the same issue!

Greg Turnipseed February 3, 2023

I did go ahead and raise an issue with Atlassian, who said that it does indeed seem to be BigPicture causing it (though I'm not sure whether that would affect the original thread's poster or Richard Wurden). I've reached out to Appfire (developers of BigPicture) for assistance and am waiting on them to address the ticket. I had planned to post a solution once I got feedback from them, but since you asked... :)

 

I'll post an update once I know something more.

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Kian Stack Mumo Systems
Community Leader
Community Leader
Community Leaders are connectors, ambassadors, and mentors. On the online community, they serve as thought leaders, product experts, and moderators.
February 3, 2023

Thanks for the follow up @Greg Turnipseed, that could be super useful to someone else with this issue!

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