How to find users and filters that have specific fields visible on Search Results through the database on Jira

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

As a consequence of the problems described on article JQL Issue searches are very slow only for a specific user (Server and Data Center), an admin may need to review which users or filters have a specific field being displayed on their searches. This can be relevant since some fields can affect performance when displayed for a large result set - commonly scripted fields or third-party fields.

This article refers to the columns visible on the Issue Navigator.

Environment

Jira 8.20.20, 9.4.14, 9.12.2

Solution

These queries where written and tested for PostgreSQL but they may require minor tweak depending on your database product and your configuration.

For reference:

  • columnlayoutitemtable contains a record for each column layout ID and column they have on their Issue Search. The customfield is stored is the "customfield_xxxx" format under thefieldidentifiercolumn.

  • columnlayoutlinks a useror a filterwith the the records from the table above.

Find users with the field on their Issue Navigator configuration

  • Replace xxxxx with the ID of the customfield.

1 2 3 4 select cl.username,au.lower_user_name, cli.fieldidentifier from columnlayout cl join columnlayoutitem cli on cl.id=cli.columnlayout join app_user au on cl.username=au.user_key where cli.fieldidentifier in ('customfield_xxxxx');

Find filters with the field on their Issue Navigator column configuration

  • This does not affect the filter results nor does is affect performance when the filter is used as a board or plan source. It's only used when the user has the Filter option selected:

Filter option selected in search columns.
  • Replace xxxxx with the ID of the customfield.

1 2 3 4 5 select sr.filtername,sr.id,sr.authorname, au.lower_user_name, cli.fieldidentifier from columnlayout cl join columnlayoutitem cli on cl.id=cli.columnlayout join searchrequest sr on cl.searchrequest=sr.id join app_user au on sr.authorname=au.user_key where cli.fieldidentifier='customfield_xxxxx';

Updated on March 14, 2025

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