CSV Import Fails due to Illegal Group Reference Error
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
Symptoms
When importing JIRA issues via CSV file, after the field mappings page, the user encounters a 500 error page as well as the below stack trace.
The following appears in the atlassian-jira.log:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
2013-06-04 16:05:01,494 http-8502-8 ERROR [500ErrorPage.jsp] Exception caught in 500 page Illegal group reference
java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Illegal group reference
at java.util.regex.Matcher.appendReplacement(Matcher.java:713)
at java.util.regex.Matcher.replaceFirst(Matcher.java:861)
at java.lang.String.replaceFirst(String.java:2146)
at com.atlassian.jira.plugins.importer.imports.csv.web.CsvFieldMappingsPage.doValidation(CsvFieldMappingsPage.java:96)
Cause
Special characters such as the $ in the import file may not be parsed correctly and can cause the IllegalArgumentException.
Resolution
Edit the CSV file and remove any $ in the column headings and reimport the CSV file.
Was this helpful?