How to change CustomField *SelectList* to *TextField* in JIRA 4.3.2

[Kapil Bolli]

Hello,

I want to change customfield type from *SelectList* to *TextField* in JIRA 4.3.2 without any data loss

Please let me required configuration changes to do it.

[Eva]

Hehe, I do this all the time. The best way is to do update statement in customfield table where id = <customfield id> and then update teh customfieldtype. I dont know the textfield from top of my head right now but if you create one or find existing one, just copy that customfieldtype value to that, and restart JIRA, adn you are set to go :)

[JamieA]

Don't try this in 4.4, or you will get data loss... As well as what eva says you should change the indexer and reindex, or just use a script.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Also, don't just restart jira when you are done - you should never run SQL updates while Jira is running - it should not be running at all.

As Jamie says, this trick won't work in 4.4 and above - you can still do it, but it's more complex.

In 4.3 and below, select list options and hence data, were held as the text you see in the lists. So swapping the issue type in the custom field table works fine. In 4.4 and above, they're held by reference, so it's a lot more complex (from memory, you'd need to read each customfieldvalue, get the reference, look it up in the options table and copy the text into a different column)