Jira Cloud: Unable to Search Users in User-Picker Fields
Platform Notice: Cloud Only - This article only applies to Atlassian apps on the cloud platform.
Summary
If a user is unable to search for other users in user-picker fields like Assignee, Reporter, or others, they are likely missing a global permission.
This can occur in both Jira Cloud and Jira Service Management Cloud. Attempting to manually assign a user results in an error: "Assignee: Failed to set field."
Solution
Before you start — which symptom do you have?
No auto-suggest / can't search names → you're missing the Browse users and groups global permission (Section 1).
You can search but assign fails with “Failed to set field” → the target user is missing Assignable User in that project's permission scheme (Section 2).
Some users appear, others don't → check whether user-picker results are restricted by group (Section 3).
Assign the global permission Browse users and groups
Permission to look up users and groups comes from the Global permission "Browse users and groups".
Go to ⚙ Settings > System
On the left side menu, select Global permissions
Scroll to the bottom of the permissions page
Select Grant "Browse users and groups" to a group that includes the affected user
Select Add
Users without the Browse Users Global Permission would still be able to add users to any user-picker field by explicitly providing the exact username - or group name as the case may be. They will not have auto-suggest working for them.
Grant Assignable User in the project permission scheme
Go to Project settings > Permissions.
Find the Assignable User permission row.
Confirm a group/role that includes the target user is granted it (company-managed projects use a permission scheme; team-managed use Project settings > Access).
Optional: restrict what users appear in user-picker fields
Admins can choose to restrict the users shown when mentioning other users or using user fields in Jira Cloud.
If users can browse for other users in user-picker fields but can't see the specific people they're looking for, this restriction may be the reason.
Please refer to our article on Managing global permissions for details and resolution steps.
Can't see users even with proper permissions
If you've confirmed that the Assignable user and Browse users and groups permissions are correctly set, there may be a syncing issue in Jira Cloud's database.
To correct this, please refer to our documentation: Can't see users when editing assignee in Jira cloud even with permissions.
Common problems without the proper permissions
If your users aren't assigned the correct permissions, they will see the following behaviors:
User can't select or search for users from the user picker fields
Jira applications don't auto-suggest any user or group (for example, when configuring global permissions) as the user begins typing
Auto-suggest feature doesn't work when trying to mention other users using @... (see also: Mentions are Not Working in Jira applications)
After granting the permission, have the affected user hard-refresh, open a work item, and start typing a name in the Assignee field — auto-suggest should now return matches. Permission changes apply immediately (no re-index needed for global permissions).
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