Issues skipped rather than updated during External System Import of CSV containing modified fields

[Jeremy Hodge]

Hi, I'm hoping this is a simple oversight on my behalf.

In Jira Software

We need to export our existing Open Issues, modify a few fields, and then reimport them back in.

• We can export to CSV successfully.
• We can import from the CSV in External System Import
  • Issue Key - Is mapped correctly
• Undesired result:
  • "4 of 4 issues have been skipped because they already exist in destination projects."
• Desired Result:
  • Update the 4 Issues

The documentation says the existing Issue should be updating.

What are we missing?  Is this a bug?  I thought this worked last night during a basic test.  I am testing this again today to ensure that we are getting the desired results.  I thought this would be a quick test, but it has me scratching my head for the past 2 hours after doing searches. 

Please help.

=============UPDATE 20180918 (a few hours later):

I was able to update the custom field by importing, some interesting findings for success:

1. Remove the 'Issue Id' values from the CSV
2. Leaving the Issue Key intact
3. Remove the 'Custom field (Rank)' values from CSV
4. I get a response of "1 projects and 0 issues imported successfully!"
   1. so there is no record of the values updating
   2. when I look at the Board it shows my custom score fields have been updated.
5. Something tells me this is not quite right

[Jeremy Hodge · Accepted solution]

"Issue id" - appears to be the issue.  By not mapping the Issue id, the Issues update correctly.

[Ignacio Pulgar]

Are those 4 issues of a sub-task issuetype? If so, there's a related feature request:

https://jira.atlassian.com/plugins/servlet/mobile#issue/JRACLOUD-64543

While I've not tried it before, I would try including the subtasks properly mapped to their respective parents like if it were a new issue import:

https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Jira-questions/Re-CSV-Importing-of-sub-tasks-and-linking-to-existing-Story/qaq-p/224227/comment-id/93308#M93308

[Jeremy Hodge]

Thank you for the quick reply.

These are just standard Issues, not sub-tasks.  That said, they are type 'tasks' not type 'issues', not sure if that would be causing the issue.

That said, I am not mapping the "issuetype" during import.  I did try mapping the "issuetype" to the 'Issue Type' field in the CSV.  On the "Values" screen following the "Fields" mapping screen I got a java-render error when the Jira Software got to the "issuetype" field.  I tried this a couple of times, each time, the web app failed at the 'issuetype' field.

See below for a small clip of that error:

....Issue Type
(imported as issuetype)    Task    →    An error occurred whilst rendering this message. Please contact the administrators, and inform them of this bug. Details: ------- org.apache.velocity.exception.MethodInvocationException: Invocation of method 'getIssueTypes' in class com.atlassian.jira.plugins.importer.imports.csv.web.CsvValueMappingsPage threw exception java.lang.NullPointerException at com.atl.......


I didn't read that the Issue Type was a required field, but this error is unusual and could be related.

Thanks again for helping me through this.

[Ignacio Pulgar]

Oh, you just truncated the stack trace where it started to become interesting for determining the root cause... hehe.

[Jeremy Hodge]

Semi-Unabridged Version :) (too long for reply)

An error occurred whilst rendering this message. Please contact the administrators, and inform them of this bug. Details: ------- org.apache.velocity.exception.MethodInvocationException: Invocation of method 'getIssueTypes' in class com.atlassian.jira.plugins.importer.imports.csv.web.CsvValueMappingsPage threw exception java.lang.NullPointerException at com.atlassian.jira.plugins.jim-plugin:actions//templates/admin/views/csv/csvValueMappingsPage.vm[line 101, column 51] at org.apache.velocity.runtime.parser.node.ASTIdentifier.execute(ASTIdentifier.java:223) at org.apache.velocity.runtime.parser.node.ASTReference.execute(ASTReference.java:262) at org.apache.velocity.runtime.parser.node.ASTReference.value(ASTReference.java:507) at org.apache.velocity.runtime.parser.node.ASTExpression.value(ASTExpression.java:71) at org.apache.velocity.runtime.parser.node.ASTSetDirective.render(ASTSetDirective.java:142) at org.apache.velocity.runtime.parser.node.ASTBlock.render(ASTBlock.java:72) at org.apache.velocity.runtime.parser.node.ASTElseIfStatement.render(ASTElseIfStatement.java:92) at org.apache.velocity.runtime.parser.node.ASTIfStatement.render(ASTIfStatement.java:106) at org.apache.velocity.runtime.parser.node.ASTBlock.render(ASTBlock.java:72) at org.apache.velocity.runtime.directive.Foreach.performIteration(Foreach.java:393) at org.apache.velocity.runtime.directive.Foreach.render(Foreach.java:316) at org.apache.velocity.runtime.parser.node.ASTDirective.render(ASTDirective.java:175) at org.apache.velocity.runtime.parser.node.ASTBlock.render(ASTBlock.java:72) at org.apache.velocity.runtime.directive.Foreach.performIteration(Foreach.java:393) at org.apache.velocity.runtime.directive.Foreach.render(Foreach.java:316) at org.apache.velocity.runtime.parser.node.ASTDirective.render(ASTDirective.java:175) at org.apache.velocity.runtime.parser.node.ASTBlock.render(ASTBlock.java:72) at org.apache.velocity.runtime.parser.node.ASTIfStatement.render(ASTIfStatement.java:87) at org.apache.velocity.runtime.parser.node.SimpleNode.render(SimpleNode.java:336) at org.apache.velocity.Template.merge(Template.java:328) at org.apache.velocity.Template.merge(Template.java:235) at org.apache.velocity.app.VelocityEngine.mergeTemplate(VelocityEngine.java:381) at com.atlassian.velocity.DefaultVelocityManager.writeEncodedBodyImpl(DefaultVelocityManager.java:117) at com.atlassian.velocity.DefaultVelocityManager.writeEncodedBody(DefaultVelocityManager.java:97) at  -------- TRIMMED TO SAVE SCREEN SPACE.

[Ignacio Pulgar]

May you paste here the full error being thrown on trying to map the issue type in your csv import?

May you visit the issuetypes configuration page and double-check if there are more than one type of issue named Task and if they're standard or subtask?

You may also open a ticket with Atlassian Support here:

https://support.atlassian.com/contact/#/

[Jeremy Hodge]

Thanks for the reply again, I did attempt to paste the full trace, unfortunately it was about 10k characters.

I have found that I can accomplish my desired results by not mapping the Issue ID.

Thanks again for offering help!