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How to resolve Jira to ADO synchronization failures caused by panels in descriptions

How to resolve Jira to ADO synchronization failures caused by panels in descriptions

Summary

When using TFS4JIRA Azure DevOps integration, users may encounter synchronization failures where Jira issues are not pushed to Azure DevOps (ADO). This issue typically occurs when the Jira issue's Description field contains specific rich text elements, such as Info panels or certain code snippets.

This article explains how to identify and resolve this synchronization conflict.

Use case: Synchronization failing due to rich text panels

Issues with rich text elements (specifically panels) in the Description field prevent the TFS4JIRA synchronizer from successfully creating or updating corresponding work items in Azure DevOps.

Symptoms

  • Jira issues are not being pushed to ADO.

  • The synchronization status indicates an error (e.g., "uncreated" status in profile logs).

  • The issue only affects specific tickets, while others sync successfully.

  • Affected tickets contain an info panel, code snippet, or script in the Description field.

Cause

The synchronizer may fail to process certain Atlassian Document Format (ADF) elements like panels or specific script formatting when translating them to ADO work item fields. This is a known limitation currently tracked in the internal development backlog.

Solution

To resolve the synchronization failure, you must remove the incompatible elements from the Jira issue.

Manual resolution

  1. Open the affected Jira issue.

  2. Click Edit or click into the Description field.

  3. Locate the Info panel, Note panel, or code snippet.

  4. Remove the panel or move the technical snippet into a plain text format or a standard code block.

  5. Save the issue.

  6. Navigate to TFS4JIRA Synchronizer > Sync Profile > Overview.

  7. Manually trigger a synchronization or wait for the next scheduled sync to verify the fix.

Automated workaround

If you frequently encounter issues with automated descriptions (e.g., generated by other apps or automations), you can use Jira Automation to sanitize the field.

  1. Navigate to Project settings > Automation.

  2. Create a rule that triggers when an issue is created or updated.

  3. Use an action to Edit issue and clear or reformat the Description field to remove incompatible panels before the synchronizer processes the issue.

Recommendation

For consistent synchronization results, it is recommended to refrain from including UI-heavy panels in Jira issues that are planned to be synchronized with Azure DevOps.