Jira Software 8.19.x upgrade notes
Here are some important notes on upgrading to Jira Software 8.19.
Upgrade notes
Here's some important information you should know about:
8.19.1: Improved user assignment and mentioning performance
Previously, when you wanted to assign or mention a user, Jira Software would retrieve the top users matching a particular search pattern. Only then filters based on the permission scheme configuration of every user matching the query would be applied until a number of top users was returned.
In Jira Software 8.19.1, we’ve changed the way Jira retrieves the top mentionable and assignable users. From now on, the top users matching a particular permissions scheme will be retrieved directly from the database. This solution also includes additional statistics that can help assess the performance of mentioning and assigning users. For more information, see JIRA stats logs - top mentionable & assignable users stats.
Additionally, to speed up the lookup of mentionable and assignable users, we’ve created the id_mem_type_child_name index on the cwd_membership database table.
Because of the new index, Jira Software 8.19.1 may take longer to start for the first time. The initial startup time will vary with the size of the cwd_membership table in your database.
8.19.1: Changes to user suggestions might result in suggesting users that aren’t eligible
In Jira 8.19.1 and later, we’ve changed how user suggestions work when you mention someone or assign them to an issue. This change improves performance, but in some cases you’ll see suggestions of users that aren’t eligible (for example, don’t have permission to view the project).
This is related to the following issues:
- JSWSERVER-20336 - Getting issue details... STATUS
- JSWSERVER-21200 - Getting issue details... STATUS
What's changing
For more information on what exactly is changing and what are the limitations, see Changes to user suggestions in Jira 8.19.
Java 11 is now bundled in our binary installers
Jira Software 8.19.0 binary installers come bundled with the AdoptOpenJDK 11 JRE. If you installed Jira Software manually from a .tar.gz or .zip archive, you can continue to use Java 8 or switch to Java 11.
Here are a few things to consider before upgrading:
In clustered Data Center configurations, all nodes must run on the same JRE version.
This change may break compatibility with some apps from the Atlassian Marketplace. If you rely on an app that does not support the newer version of Java, switch back to Java 8. See Change the Java version used by Jira Data Center and Server.
Some of the options used in the
setenv.shandsetenv.batfiles are no longer supported in Java 11. Make sure you apply the necessary changes when you upgrade.If you set any additional arguments, you may need to check that these are still available in Java 11 as they may cause errors when you start Jira.
We also recommend adding the following line to the setenv.sh or setenv.bat file:
-XX:+IgnoreUnrecognizedVMOptions
This allows the JVM to ignore unrecognized top-level options.
Changes to the data pipeline
We’ve made a few changes to the data pipeline that you should be aware of:
We now check there is at least 5GB free disk space before starting an export. This threshold is configurable using the
plugin.data.pipeline.minimum.usable.disk.space.after.exportsystem property.The export schema is now versioned to allow for changes to the structure of the exported data. If not specified, the data pipeline will use the latest schema version.
User details are now exported to a separate
usersfile. This change is applied in schema version 2.
Throttling Activity Stream requests
Activity Streams can consume a lot of CPU, so we’ve added a configurable throttling mechanism that lets Jira System administrators control the percentage of the CPU time allotted to Activity Stream requests.
The set percentage is multiplied by the number of available CPU cores and 30 seconds to arrive at the total time budget for all Activity Stream requests. If the combined duration of all requests processed within the past 30 seconds exceeds the calculated budget, new requests will be throttled until enough CPU resources are available and an appropriate warning message will appear.
For example, on a 10-core system with the CPU time percentage set to 33, the total CPU time that Activity Stream requests can utilize is calculated as 10 x 30s x 0.33. This means that if the combined duration of all requests processed within the past 30 seconds exceeds 100 seconds, any new requests will be temporarily rejected.
To configure the allowed maximum percentage, set the com.atlassian.streams.internal.LocalActivityProviders.allowed.wallclock.percentage startup option to a value from 0 to 100. The default is 10. See Setting properties and options on startup.
If you want to avoid throttling, you can:
Increase the CPU core count in your system
Increase the CPU time percentage allotted to Activity Streams (this may degrade system performance)
Reduce the number of dashboards displaying Activity Streams
Change the users' default homepage to something other than the dashboard
End of support announcements
In this version, we’re removing support for PostgreSQL 9.6. Make sure to migrate to the latest supported version of PostgreSQL before upgrading Jira. See Upgrading from PostgreSQL 9.6 to PostgreSQL 12.
For the list of supported platforms, see Supported platforms.
App developers
See Preparing for Jira 8.19 for any important changes regarding apps.
Upgrade procedure
Upgrading from a Jira version 8.x.x?
- See Upgrading Jira applications for complete upgrade procedures, including all available upgrade methods and pre-upgrade steps.
- For a more tailored upgrade, go to Jira administration > Applications > Plan your upgrade. We’ll recommend a version to upgrade to, run pre-upgrade checks, and provide you with a custom upgrade guide with step-by-step instructions.