Why are Type icons of custom types not displaying in Outlook

[Ron Santschi]

Type icons of custom types are not displaying in Outlook.

The reason seems to be that they are encoded differently. 

For example:

The Epic icon  uses this  src=cid:jira-generated-image-static-epic-4a688bbd-ad05-4dc3-9fed-a74ee9be487f  and shows in Outlook emails.

The icon of a custom Type that I created uses this src=https://servicedesk.companyname.com/secure/viewavatar?size=xsmall&avatarId=10303&avatarType=issuetype  and Outlooks blocks this icon from being displayed in emails.

This is annoying.

[Andy Heinzer · Accepted solution]

Hi Ron,

It sounds like you might be encountering this documented bug https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRASERVER-47545

Could you please let me know what version of Jira you are using here?  I tried to replicate this problem on the latest version 7.11.0, however in my test instance, my custom issue type icon is appearing correctly in email notifications.   Granted I'm not using Outlook, but rather a gmail inbox in my case, but perhaps this is something that has been fixed, but not yet documented within the product.

[Ron Santschi]

Hi Andrew, thank you for pointing out JRASERVER-47545. This is exactly the bug I am encountering.  Since this is low priority I will likely not live to see this fixed.  Oh, well.

FYI, this bug does not affect Gmail, only Outlook.

[Andy Heinzer]

That bug ticket does not indicate that it is specific to Outlook.  The way the bug is described indicates that it would have affected any email client.  

Which is another reason why I would like to know what version of Jira you are using in your environment.   The versions currently listed there (6.4, 7.1) are all actually end of life at this point.  It could be this same bug affects other versions of Jira, and it's important for us to track these kinds of defects in order to better understand them.  Since we have not have very many reports of this defect, it's important to gather more information here.

In my example, my Jira 7.11.0, the HTML of the message had the following tag for my custom image:

<img src="cid:jira-generated-image-avatar-aec88432-7764-4b40-981b-9df974afd01c" height="16" width="16" border="0" align="absmiddle" alt="Favor" style="vertical-align: text-bottom">

In your case it looks like the message is trying to insert a complete URL for the source of the image in https://servicedesk.companyname.com/secure/viewavatar?size=xsmall&avatarId=10303&avatarType=issuetype

What happens if you try to navigate to that URL directly, in a private browser session?  Can you load that image?  Or do you need to be authenticated against the Jira session to see that icon in the browser?  I'm just curious if we can learn more about this specific problem with the details of your environment like Jira version number, and is this a Jira Software project or a Jira  Service Desk project?

(I ask that one because Service Desk can have a different way of sending outbound notifications)

Thanks

Andy

[Ron Santschi]

Hi Andy,

Many thanks for giving me the example tag of your custom image.

This gave me the idea to do a test and create a brand new custom issue type with image.  Success! New custom issue types now seem to create jira-generated-image-avatar style images, which display correctly in Outlook.

I had created my custom types back in 04/2016 on a Jira version that must have been creating complete URL links.

We are on Jira Server 7.4.3 and custom types already work in this version.  They also work in 7.10.1 to which we will soon upgrade.

Problem solved.

[Andy Heinzer]

Very interesting.  Thanks for sharing your details here, Ron!   Glad to hear it is working correctly now.  I will update that bug ticket to post your steps, perhaps that will help other users that encounter this problem in the future.