JIRA throws "The request sent by the client was syntactically incorrect" when deleting actors from Project Roles via REST API

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Summary

Problem

When trying to delete actors from Project Roles via REST API using the following command, the following error is thrown

Command

1 curl -u admin:admin -X DELETE --data @data.txt -H "Content-Type: application/json" http://10.60.4.105:8641/jira/rest/api/2/project/DUMMY/role/10000

Error

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 <html> <head> <title>Apache Tomcat/7.0.55 - Error report</title> <style> <!--H1 { font-family: Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif; color: white; background-color: #525D76; font-size: 22px; } H2 { font-family: Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif; color: white; background-color: #525D76; font-size: 16px; } H3 { font-family: Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif; color: white; background-color: #525D76; font-size: 14px; } BODY { font-family: Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif; color: black; background-color: white; } B { font-family: Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif; color: white; background-color: #525D76; } P { font-family: Tahoma, Arial, sans-serif; background: white; color: black; font-size: 12px; } A { color: black; } A.name { color: black; } HR { color: #525D76; } --> </style> </head> <body> <h1>HTTP Status 400 - Bad Request</h1> <HR size="1" noshade="noshade"> <p><b>type</b> Status report</p> <p><b>message</b> <u>Bad Request</u> </p> <p><b>description</b> <u>The request sent by the client was syntactically incorrect.</u> </p> <HR size="1" noshade="noshade"> <h3>Apache Tomcat/7.0.55</h3> </body> </html>

Diagnosis

When using the same command to add actors to project roles, it doesn't run into any problem

Command

1 2 curl -u admin:admin -X POST --data @data.txt -H "Content-Type: application/json" http://10.60.4.105:8641/jira/rest/api/2/project/DUMMY/role/10000

Cause

This is a known mistake with the documentations regarding deleting actors from project roles tracked in the following

The DELETE method does not allow application/json, you must modify the URL to delete actors from project roles.

Solution

Resolution

Modify the URL to be like the following to delete actors from Project Roles

  • 1 http://<JIRA_URL>:<port>/rest/api/2/project/{PROJECTKEY}/role/{ROLEID}?user={username}
  • 1 http://<JIRA_URL>:<port>/rest/api/2/project/{PROJECTKEY}/role/{ROLEID}?group={groupname}
Updated on April 11, 2025

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