How to Remove Application Navigator Entries from the Jira Server Database

Summary

The Application Navigator will show duplicate links even if the URLs have a minor difference such as:

• The protocol (HTTP vs HTTPS).

• The existence (or not) of a trailing slash.

Duplicate links may appear in the Application Navigator if:

• You have at least 3 Atlassian products in your setup.

• You add links to Atlassian apps in the Application Navigator without creating Application Links. Some of those links are added with a trailing slash and some others without; or some links use HTTP while other use HTTPS.

• You create Application Links between the products and you don't consistently use or dismiss the trailing slash, or don't consistently use HTTPS (or HTTP).

• The products will pull the links from each other when creating Application Links, and thus, the change of showing duplicates increases.

  • If a link LinkC is added to the Application Navigator of applicationA and an App Link is created between applicationA and applicationB, applicationB will pick up LinkC and show it in its own Application Navigator.

Diagnosis

Query the database and inspect the links in the Application Navigator for duplicates that only differ in the protocol, the trailing slash or any other difference:

SELECT * FROM propertytext WHERE propertyvalue LIKE '%baseUrl%';

Solution

If the JIRA administrator is not able to remove a link in the Application Navigator screen, deletion via SQL must be done in the database directly.

If JIRA has an application link to another site, then deleting the weblink in the application navigator is insufficient to remove this. JIRA will automatically recreate this application navigator weblink for existing application links per Creating links in the application navigator. Instead you have to delete the Application Link first.

• Stop JIRA

• Query the propertyvalue of the Application Navigator entry in the propertytext table

  SELECT * FROM propertytext WHERE propertyvalue LIKE '%baseUrl%';

  It should retrieve a result of something like this:

ℹ️ The propertyvalue result has been separated for easier view

• To remove the entry, let's say the Old JIRA entry ("id":"5"), please update the row by trimming out that particular line which includes the details of Old JIRA. The query should look like this:

  UPDATE propertytext SET propertyvalue='[{"baseUrl":"http://localhost:8617/jira617/","id":"1","hide":false,"applicationName":"JIRA617","self":true,"applicationType":"jira","displayName":"JIRA617","allowedGroups":[],"editable":false,"url":"http://localhost:8617/jira617/"}, {"id":"2","hide":false,"self":false,"applicationType":"jira","displayName":"JIRA622","allowedGroups":[],"editable":true,"url":"http://localhost:8622/jira622/"}, {"id":"3","hide":false,"self":false,"applicationType":"jira","displayName":"SAC","allowedGroups":[],"editable":true,"url":"https://support.atlassian.com/"}, {"id":"4","hide":false,"self":false,"applicationType":"generic","displayName":"JAC","allowedGroups":[],"editable":true,"url":"https://jira.atlassian.com/"}]' WHERE propertyvalue LIKE '%baseUrl%';

  ⚠️ Notice the line for "id":"5" has been trimmed. It is required to replace the whole line for SET propertyvalue='...' with the result of your own query result.

• Restart JIRA and verify whether the link in the Application Navigator has been removed

Resolution

In order to avoid having duplicates in the Application Navigator, the admin should write URLs in a consistent way when adding items to the Application Navigator or adding AppLinks. For instance:

• If the application runs on HTTPS, use https:// in the URL (vs http://) even if your application has HTTP to HTTPS redirection).

• Do not use a trailing slash in URLs.