Workflow transition buttons are missing or the error "You don't have permission to transition this issue" is displayed in Jira Data Center
Platform Notice: Data Center Only - This article only applies to Atlassian products on the Data Center platform.
Note that this KB was created for the Data Center version of the product. Data Center KBs for non-Data-Center-specific features may also work for Server versions of the product, however they have not been tested. Support for Server* products ended on February 15th 2024. If you are running a Server product, you can visit the Atlassian Server end of support announcement to review your migration options.
*Except Fisheye and Crucible
Summary
Problem
Some users are unable to transition a Jira issue. Depending on the Jira version that you are using, the symptoms will be slightly different:
On Jira versions below 9.0.0, the workflow transition buttons are missing from the issue view page:
On Jira versions above 9.0.0, there is a drop-down next to the current status, but when clicking on it, the error You don't have permission to transition this issue is displayed:
Diagnosis
Checking the permissions
Let's first verify that the affected user has the right permission to transition the issue:
Check that the user is granted permission to transition issues within the project, by following the steps below:
Go to ⚙ > System > Permission Helper
Select the affected user
Select the key of the issue that can't be transitioned
Select the Transition issues permission
Click on the Submit button
If the result is negative, then the Root Cause 5-a is relevant
If the result is positive, move on to the step below
Check the configuration of the workflow which is associated with the type of issue where transitions cannot be transitioned.
This can be checked by going to the page Project Settings > Workflows and then trying to edit the Workflow associated to the right issue type
Check each workflow transition that is missing from the Issue View page, to see if there is any condition associated to it. If any of the condition is not respected by the user viewing the issue, the transition button will be hidden.
In such case, the Root Cause 5-b is relevant
If you verified that the user has permission to transition the issue (via the project permission configuration and the workflow), then you can move on to the steps below.
Checking the issue data consistency/integrity
All queries were written and tested on PostgreSQL. Other DB products might need syntax adjustments and your setup might require database name and schema to be provided for table names. If your database is
case sensitive
, and any query returns an error related to table not found, please observe if in the database the queried table name is capitalized or in lower case.
Run the following query to check the state of the workflow that is associated with the issue which cannot be transitioned. Replace the issue number and project key with those of the impacted issue (in the example below, the issue key is "ABC-123").
1
2
3
4
5
6
select * from os_wfentry
where id = (select workflow_id from jiraissue where issuenum = 123 and project = (select id from project where pkey = 'ABC'));
id | name | initialized | state
-------+------+-------------+-------
10100 | test | | 3
(1 row) The meaning for the "state" column values is the following: 0 for Inactive, 1 for Active, 3 for Killed, 4 for Complete.
If the value of the workflow state is different than 1, it means the workflow is not active and Cause 6 applies.
Run the following query to verify if the issue is not associated with a valid workflow step:
1
2
3
4
5
select concat(concat(P.pkey,'-'),I.issuenum)
from jiraissue I
join project P on P.id = I.project
left join os_currentstep C on C.entry_id = I.workflow_id
where C.id is nullIf the query returned any of your issues, then Cause 6 is relevant.
Check the Jira application logs and look for the error below:
1
State of issue [ABC-123] has an action [id=2] which cannot be found in the workflow descriptorIf you find this error associated to the issue where transition buttons are missing, then it means there is some data corruption/inconsistency in the database for that specific issue and Cause 6 applies. In this case, the easiest fix is to force a workflow remapping for that issue. Please refer to the Workaround 1 to force Workflow remapping under the Workaround section.
Cause
Possible causes:
The workflow applied (value of the "name" column) on this issue is no longer associated with the project;
The issue state is not active. (The value for the "state" column: 0 for Inactive, 1 for Active, 3 for Killed, 4 for Complete);
The issue is not associated with an existing current step;
Missing add-ons used by the workflow - Refer to JIRA doesn't display any transitions for issues in the issue view page;
Incorrect Permissions:
The user is not granted the Transition Issues permission in the Project the Jira issue belongs to, as per the Permission Scheme associated to the project
There are some condition(s) configured in the workflow used by the Jira issue that prevents the user from seeing the missing transition(s)
The user does not have permission to edit an Epic Link and face either of the 2 bugs listed below:
Corruption/inconsistency in the Jira Database around the workflow information associated to the impacted Jira issue
Solution
Workaround
Always back up your data before making any database modifications. If possible, test any alter, insert, update, or delete SQL commands on a staging server first.
Causes 1 - 3, 5c, 6:
Please run the integrity checker to fix the issue.
In case the integrity checker is not able to fix the issue, let's try to fix the workflow inconsistency for the impacted issue by forcing a workflow remapping:
Workaround 1 to force Workflow remapping:
Check the list of workflows configured within the project that the impact Jira issue belongs to (via the page Project Settings > Workflows)
Identify an issue type other than the one the impacted Jira issue belongs to impacted, and that is associated to a different workflow
Open the impacted Jira issue, click on More > Move and move it to the issue type that you identified in the previous step. Moving it to a new issue type will force the workflow remapping
Move the issue again to its original issue type
Check if you are now able to see the missing transitions
⚠️ The downside of this workaround is that if the new issue type's fields are different, some of the issue's fields may be cleared and need to be re-entered manually.
If this workaround did not help, or if you could not find an issue type associated to a different workflow, try the Workaround 2 below instead.
Workaround 2 to force Workflow remapping:
Open the impacted Jira issue, click on More > Move and move it to another project
Move this issue back to its original project and issue type
Check if you are now able to see the missing transitions
⚠️ The downside of this workaround is that this issue will end up with a new issue key after it is moved back to its original project
If this workaround did not help, try the Workaround 3 below instead.
Workaround 3 to force Workflow remapping:
Clone the impacted Jira issue (and close the original one)
Check if you are now able to see the missing transitions
⚠️ The downside of this workaround is the fact that this issue will end up with a new issue key after it is cloned.
Workaround 4 to force Workflow remapping:
Copy the workflow and replace it on the project's workflow scheme. It'll trigger a workflow remap. You may reassign the original workflow back if you want right after.
⚠️ The downside of this workaround is that it's likely to be slower than the other options above, since all issues in the project will have their workflows remapped.
Issue state inconsistency "Killed," not captured by the Integrity Checker (JRASERVER-26454 - Fix the integrity checker so that it can correct workflow steps in the 'KILLED' state):
Please run the following query against the database. For the sample below, considering an issue called 'ABC-123':
1update os_wfentry set state = 1 where id = (select workflow_id from jiraissue where issuenum = 123 and project = (select id from project where pkey = 'ABC'));
Issue state inconsistency "Inactive" if the Integrity Checker was not executed. Reference SQL equivalents for Jira server's workflow integrity checks Skip to end of metadata:
Find all issues using an inactive state:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8SELECT jiraissue.id issue_id, jiraissue.workflow_id, os_wfentry.* FROM jiraissue JOIN os_wfentry ON jiraissue.workflow_id = os_wfentry.id WHERE os_wfentry.state IS NULL OR os_wfentry.state = 0;Update all broken states:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8UPDATE os_wfentry SET state = 1 WHERE id IN (SELECT os_wfentry.id FROM jiraissue JOIN os_wfentry ON jiraissue.workflow_id = os_wfentry.id WHERE os_wfentry.state IS NULL OR os_wfentry.state = 0);
Workaround for cause 3:
Run the following SQL query to generate the inserts for all issues missing the valid workflow step entry:
1 2select concat(concat('insert into os_currentstep values ((select max(id)+1 from os_currentstep),',workflow_id),',1,0,'''',now(),null,null,''open'',null)') from jiraissue where workflow_id not in (select entry_id from os_currentstep)Copy all results and run the inserts to add the missing rows.
Cause 5a, 5b:
The impacted user does not have the right Permission to execute the transition:
Check configuration of the Permission Scheme associated to the project
This can be checked by going to the page Project Settings > Permissions
Review the Transition Issues permission, and make sure that the impacted user is part of the users/groups which are associated to this permission
If the user is missing, then modify the configuration of the Transition Issues permission, so that this user can be included
Check the configuration of the workflow which is associated to the type of the issue where buttons are missing
This can be checked by going to the the page Project Settings > Workflows, and then trying to edit the Workflow associated to the right issue type
Check each workflow transition that is missing from the Issue View page, to see if there is any condition associated to it. If any of the condition is not respected by the user viewing the issue, the transition button will be hidden
For example, when adding a condition like Only the assignee of the issue can execute this transition, The transition button will not appear when a user other than the assignee edits the issue:
Was this helpful?