Unable to add user due to 'Cannot write to read-only GroupManager'

Platform Notice: Data Center Only - This article only applies to Atlassian products on the Data Center platform.

Note that this KB was created for the Data Center version of the product. Data Center KBs for non-Data-Center-specific features may also work for Server versions of the product, however they have not been tested. Support for Server* products ended on February 15th 2024. If you are running a Server product, you can visit the Atlassian Server end of support announcement to review your migration options.

*Except Fisheye and Crucible

Summary

When adding a user, or perhaps adding a user to a group, it fails with the following error: "Cannot write to read-only GroupManager".

Environment

Using LDAP as a user management directory in Bamboo.

Diagnosis

The error below is thrown to <bamboo-home>/logs/atlassian-bamboo.log when adding a user in LDAP to a group named bamboo-admin or bamboo-users:

1 2 3 4 5 6 INFO [http-nio-8085-exec-14] [AccessLogFilter] username POST https://<bamboo_url>/admin/group/updateGroup.action 1637292kb ERROR [http-nio-8085-exec-14] [ExceptionMappingInterceptor] Cannot write to read-only GroupManager [ldapRepository] java.lang.UnsupportedOperationException: Cannot write to read-only GroupManager [ldapRepository] at com.atlassian.user.impl.ReadOnlyGroupManager.addMembership(ReadOnlyGroupManager.java:40) at com.atlassian.user.impl.cache.CachingGroupManager.addMembership(CachingGroupManager.java:172) at com.atlassian.user.impl.delegation.DelegatingGroupManager.addMembership(DelegatingGroupManager.java:250)

Cause

This indicates that there is a group with a duplicate name in the LDAP user directory, usually bamboo-admin or bamboo-users.

By default, a special group called bamboo-admin is automatically created when Bamboo is installed, therefore cannot be the same group name in LDAP.

Solution

Make sure these group names, reserved for internal use in Bamboo, are not used in the LDAP user directory.

Updated on March 14, 2025

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