Error Importing from XML backup: A Group in the backup file is missing the groupName parameter
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
An error message is returned when trying to import from an XML backup into JIRA, for instance, when performing a Project Import.
The following appears in the atlassian-jira.log:
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2014-04-04 16:20:27,322 JiraTaskExectionThread-4 WARN rkande 937x8062506x2 i207p5 10.27.75.101,10.236.32.25 /secure/admin/ProjectImportSelectProject.jspa [imports.project.handler.ChainedSaxHandler] Encountered a parsing exception.
com.atlassian.jira.exception.ParseException: A Group in the backup file is missing the groupName parameter.
at com.atlassian.jira.imports.project.parser.GroupParserImpl.parse(GroupParserImpl.java:28)
at com.atlassian.jira.imports.project.handler.GroupMapperHandler.handleEntity(GroupMapperHandler.java:45)Diagnosis
Run the following SQL queries against JIRA database. If there are any results returned from the queries, then this KB is applicable:
To check any 'group_name' with NULL value
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SELECT * FROM <jira-schema>.cwd_group WHERE group_name IS NULL;To check any 'group_name' with an empty string value
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SELECT * FROM <jira-schema>.cwd_group WHERE group_name = "";If the above 2 queries return nothing then:
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SELECT group_name,lower_group_name FROM <jira-schema>.cwd_group;Got through the results to check for any 'group_name' with any illegal character/symbol or simply comprising of blank spaces. This could be quite a task for a JIRA instance with lots of groups.
Cause
There is a user group in the JIRA instance with no group name or perhaps an invalid group name.
Resolution
After identifying the problematic records in the cwd_group table from the SQL queries under the Diagnosis section above, a few options are available to fix this (note that you may not be able to delete the group directly in the UI due to JRASERVER-21093 - Group without a group-name cannot be deleted)
This can be fixed directly from the XML backup.
Extract the zip file, and edit entities.xml
Search the entities.xml file for the string '<Group id ="xxx" ', replace xxx with the id of the records without a group name. Alternatively you can search for 'groupName=""' to catch empty groupName
Manually enter any string such as 'temp-group-name' for groupName and lowerGroupName for this group entries.
Zip up the XML backup files again
Attempt to re-import into JIRA.
Alternatively, run SQL updates on the affected groups to set the group_name and lower_group_name attributes directly from the database:
Backup JIRA database
Run the following SQL update statement on the source JIRA instance:
1UPDATE cwd_group SET group_name = 'temp-group-name', lower_group_name = 'temp-group-name' WHERE ID = 'xxx';(replace xxx with corresponding group ID)
Restart JIRA for the changes to take effect. Take a new XML backup from this JIRA instance to try your import again. Also, it should now be possible to delete the problematic groups from JIRA UI if necessary.
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