Remove a Jira group that has no name

Symptoms

You receive an error message when trying to remove a group with no name that was added to the system.

Blank Group:

Error from trying to remove the blank group:

Cause

In previous Jira versions, 4.x to 6.x, creating a group with no name was possible because there was no validator in place.

Now, in newer Jira versions, a group name validator has been added to the "Add group name" dialog, so at least invalid/empty group names cannot be submitted via the UI anymore.

But if such group records are contained in the database some other way, or from previous JIRA versions, the only way to remove or modify them currently is directly from the Database.

Resolution

⚠️ For Jira 4.x.x to Jira 6.x.x :

You will need to update the group to have a name from your database side

1. Make a backup of your JIRA Database

2. Shutdown JIRA

3. Run the following query to verify the group that has no name

   1 SELECT * from groupbase where groupname = '';

4. Update the group name to a temporary name

   1 UPDATE groupbase SET groupname = 'temp_group' where groupname = '';

5. Start JIRA

6. Remove the group from the UI.

⚠️ For Jira 7.x and above:

1. Make a backup of your JIRA Database

2. Shutdown JIRA

3. Run the following query to verify the group that has no name:

   1 SELECT * from cwd_group where group_name ='';

4. Update the group name to a temporary name p.e: TEMP_GROUP:

   1 UPDATE cwd_group set group_name = 'TEMP_GROUP', lower_group_name = 'temp_group' where group_name = '';

5. Start Jira

6. Remove the group from the UI.