Jira Software 9.5.x release notes

6 December 2022

We're pleased to present Jira Software 9.5.

Highlights

• Jira migrates to Log4j2
• Audit log improvements
• In-product diagnostics updates
• Support for Java 17 added
• H2 database upgraded to version 2.1.214
• Jira Temporary Directory Cleaner introduced
• Date picker accessibility improvements for low-vision and keyboard-only users
• Resolved issues

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More

Read the upgrade notes for important info about this release and see the full list of issues resolved.

 Compatible applications

If you're looking for compatible Jira applications, look no further:

• Jira Core 9.5 release notes
• Jira Service Management 5.5 release notes

Good to know

If you're thinking of moving to Data Center, check our recommendations first. See: Infrastructure recommendations for Jira.

Jira migrates to Log4j2

To take the extra step and ensure continued compliance, we’ve upgraded Log4j to version 2.17.2.

Since this is a breaking change, some effort may be required to ensure that any existing custom Log4j 1.x configurations are compatible with Jira 9.5:

• If you’re an admin using a custom Log4j 1.x configuration with your Jira instance, you’ll need to adjust the new log4j2.xml file to include those customizations. For more information about configuring Log4j 2, see Migrating from Log4j 1.x to 2.x and Configuring Log4j 2 in the official documentation.

• If you’re an app vendor and your app uses a custom Log4j 1.x configuration, you’ll need to update your code. For more information on what this means for you, see Log4j upgrade details for third-party app vendors.

Audit log improvements

We’ve updated the Audit log feature for a faster loading experience.

The site and project admins might have issues with the Audit log page loading when the database contained more than a few million events. This mostly affected the PostgresSQL and MySQL (including MariaDB) database types.

We’ve fixed this performance issue by incrementally caching the categories and summaries in new smaller database tables. The tables are used to provide options in the categories and summaries filters. The tables are also used for the excluded events selector in the settings.

Here are a few more side improvements provided by the update:

• The width of the summaries filter has increased so they can be read.

• The inconsistent translation of controls on the Audit log page has been fixed. Audit events, affected objects, categories, and summaries continue to be based on the system locale at the time.

• The issue with the Audit log page loading has been fixed. The page couldn’t load if a CDN that forced JavaScript deferring was used.

Learn more about auditing in Jira

In-product diagnostics updates: new user interface, REST API, and performance metrics

We’ve made several updates and improvements to the In-product diagnostics (IPD) tool to help you monitor and maintain your instance performance:

• User interface: You can now manage the IPD monitoring manually in the user interface, with the In-product diagnostics monitoring toggle. By default, the feature is enabled.

  The toggle will also be available in version 9.4.3. Check Jira Software release notes for updates.

• A new REST API endpoint: We’ve added the /rest/api/2/monitoring/ipd endpoint for managing the IPD monitoring.

• New IPD metrics: We’ve added HTTP connection and mail queue metrics for instance diagnostics. The metrics are available through JMX and the log file atlassian-jira-ipd-monitoring.log.

Support for Java 17 added

We’ve added support for Java 17 to boost Jira performance and strengthen instance stability.

Make sure your Jira apps are updated to work on Java 17 and feel free to set up a new environment for Jira deployment.

Because of the added support for Java 17, you might get errors when installing Jira 9.5. Here's how to prevent this

The H2 database upgraded from 1.4.200 to 2.1.214

We’ve upgraded the embedded database H2 from version 1.4.200 to version 2.1.214. The upgrade has fixed a bunch of vulnerability issues. Make sure you’ve migrated your data to version 2.1.214 manually.

Learn more about how to migrate the data for the smooth upgrade

Jira Temporary Directory Cleaner introduced

We’re introducing Jira Temporary Directory Cleaner to solve the issue of instances running out of space. With the help of the feature, during startup, Jira will automatically clean its temporary directory defined by the java.io.tmpdir property.

The Cleaner is disabled by default. To enable it, set the tmpdir.clean.on.startup property to true. You can do it by adding a new argument in the setenv.sh script:
-Dtmpdir.clean.on.startup=true.

Learn more about the feature

Date picker accessibility improvements for low-vision and keyboard-only users

The date pickers in the Edit sprint dialog and the Due date field are now compatible with screen readers and can also be controlled by keyboard only. With this change, all the interactive elements in the date pickers correctly receive keyboard focus and screen readers can announce their contents.

We've also added Confirm and Cancel buttons to make it easier to save or discard your choices when using keyboard navigation.

Resolved issues