Issue could not be assigned error in Jira Service Management Cloud
Platform Notice: Cloud Only - This article only applies to Atlassian products on the cloud platform.
Summary
When attempting to assign tickets to an agent in Jira Service Management, users may encounter the error message 'Issue could not be updated.'
Diagnosis
Issue could not be updated
The 'assignee' field of <issue_key> could not be updated. User '<User ID>' cannot be assigned issues."
Cause
This error occurs when an agent doesn't have the right permissions.
To assign issues to others, agents must have Assign Issues permission in the project
To have issues assigned to them, agents must have the following permissions:
Assignable User
Service Project Agent
Finally, agents must have a Jira Service Management license.
Solution
You need to check the license and the permission granted to the affected user.
Check for a Jira Service Management license
Go to Settings > User management
Select a user on the Users page
Under Groups, confirm the user has a Jira Service Management License
Check for Permissions in the service project
Navigate to the affected project
Go to Project Settings > Permissions
Ensure the affected user has the Assign Issue and Assignable User permissions
If not, select Actions > Edit permissions
For both permissions, select the Update link
In the Update permission dialog, choose who to grant the permission to and select Update
To learn more about User management and Project permissions, please refer to:
Was this helpful?