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CMJ - Updating "Commented By" User After Jira Cloud to Data Center Migration

CMJ - Updating "Commented By" User After Jira Cloud to Data Center Migration

The article explains the issue where comments display user account IDs instead of actual usernames.

Jira Environment

Data Center (migrated from Cloud)

Problem

After migrating a Jira project from Cloud to Data Center using Configuration Manager for Jira (CMJ), users notice that comments are attributed to user account IDs instead of readable usernames.

Diagnosis

This issue arises when there are username mismatches between the source (Cloud) and destination (Data Center) environments. During migration, CMJ cannot automatically resolve user identity if usernames differ across environments, leading to comment authors being shown as account IDs.

Jira Cloud uses account IDs while Jira Data Center uses usernames. If user normalization (matching usernames) is not done before migration, CMJ cannot map them correctly, resulting in incorrect "Commented by" values in the migrated issues.

Solution

  • Recommended Approach: Pre-Migration User Normalization

Ensure that usernames in the source and destination environments match before taking a snapshot and deploying it with CMJ. More details as in https://confluence.atlassian.com/adminjiraserver0816/migrating-jira-projects-1167832983.html .

Example:
If Steven King has the username stevek in the Cloud instance and steveking in the Data Center instance, CMJ will treat them as different users and create a new user. To avoid this, standardize the username across both environments.

 

  • Post-Migration Workaround (Not Recommended)

    • You can update the user attribution in comments manually using:

      • Direct database updates (jiraaction and jiraissue tables), or

      • Groovy scripts

⚠️ These methods are not recommended and carry the risk of data corruption or loss.