Browser Troubleshooting Guide
Platform Notice: Cloud, Server, and Data Center - This article applies equally to all platforms.
Support for Server* products ended on February 15th 2024. If you are running a Server product, you can visit the Atlassian Server end of support announcement to review your migration options.
*Except Fisheye and Crucible
In order to investigate and resolve the most common browser-related issues, there are some tests and questions that are indispensable to troubleshooting these cases. I've listed all of them in the first section of this document below, so you can review each one of them to easily eliminate the most common problems. Also, there are some browser particularities that cause a lot of known issues that can be easily solved by following the tips provided in this section as well.
When there is an issue with browsers, two of the most common solutions are :
- remove cache & cookies
- disable all extensions and then use a new window to test
Indispensable tests
Label explanation
The labels LOW MEDIUM and HIGH will show how often the question made is the cause of the issue.
| Troubleshoot | Google Chrome / MS Edge | Internet Explorer | Mozilla Firefox | Safari | Explanation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| If you access the Browser in the "No Add-ons mode" does the problem still occur? | HIGH | HIGH | MEDIUM | LOW | No: Incompatible Add-Ons causing the problem. Yes: Browser Add-Ons are compatible. |
| Is this error occurring with more than one user? | HIGH | HIGH | HIGH | HIGH | No: Problem with the user or some personal browser configuration. Yes: Possible Bug, company policy (firewall, blocked site, Antivirus blocking) |
| Is this error occurring in all the computers with this browser? | HIGH | HIGH | HIGH | HIGH | Yes: Possible Bug, company policy (firewall, blocked site, Antivirus blocking) No: Problem with the computer or some personal browser configuration. |
| If you access the instance bypassing the proxy (IP: PORT), does the problem still occur? NOTE: does not apply to Cloud | HIGH | HIGH | HIGH | HIGH | Yes: Proxy is not the root cause of the Issue. No: Sometimes the problem is related to the proxy, but be careful with this because the proxy is not always the root cause even when this test is performed. |
| If you disable the "Compatibility View", does the problem still occur? | LOW | HIGH | LOW | LOW | Yes: The compatibility view is disabled. No: The compatibility view must be disabled, as it is not supported by Internet Explorer. |
| If you access the instance in Private/Incognito mode, does the problem still occur? | MEDIUM | MEDIUM | HIGH | LOW | Yes: The problem is possibly not related to cache and cookies, but you may want to clean these manually. No: Cache and Cookies must be cleaned. (Usually occurs with Firefox). |
| Have you tried to access the instance on a previous version of this same browser and check if the problem persists? | MEDIUM | MEDIUM | MEDIUM | LOW | Yes: Proceed with all the troubleshooting above. No: This may be a bug or a problem with this specific version of the browser and you should verify the forums and release notes of the recent versions of the browser to check if this has been fixed. |
All the tests above are indispensable to be made in order to eliminate many of the most common browser's problems.
Particularities of specific browsers
Mozilla Firefox:
One of the problems that may happen with Firefox is that some Atlassian Application pages (even the login page) have missing fields, gadgets, etc. This problem usually occurs on Firefox 17.0.1 and versions released after it. The cause of this problem is that Firefox has a property called "Safebrowsing". This may block some external communications even with trusted websites (like gadgets for example) or even block the site itself if it's considered "Unsafe". To disable this option the user will have to browse through Tools/Security/ , uncheck "Block reported attack sites" and "Block reported web forgeries" and then clear the browser's cache.
Also, Mozilla Firefox has had a history of issues related to Memory Leak. Some users may report that Atlassian Applications (or any other website/tool) is having performance issues only in this browser. Check the version of the browser that's being used and upgrade it to the latest version.
There is a bug reported in (JRA-31774) where in both Chrome and Firefox, there is a JQL query length limitation of 2.000 characters, but IE doesn't have such a limitation. So sometimes a user creates a filter with more than 2.000 characters in IE and later tries to use this same filter in Chrome or Firefox errors are thrown because of the length limitation. (This has been fixed in JIRA 6.0.5)
Internet Explorer:
Some users may experience a "Page not Found Error" on Internet Explorer while performing some actions that involve the URL. For example, exporting files to Excel, bulk actions, etc. When performing the action, the user will face the "Page not Found Error" and no clear explanation will be shown in the Application logs. This happens because Internet Explorer has a limit of 2,083 characters in the URL. Attempts to use URLs longer than this produced will throw the described error. The workaround for this is to use another browser.
IE 9 also kinda/sorta supports HTML 5, which leads to confusion over functionality such as Drag and Drop.
Sometimes changing IE's configuration to the default one fixes a lot of unexpected behaviors. To do this, just follow the instructions from this page.
Google Chrome / MS Edge:
Since January 2020 Microsoft Edge has been based on Chromium same as Google Chrome. For troubleshooting intents and purposes they can be considered equal.
Google automatically installs new Add-Ons without advising the end user about it, so the "No Add-Ons" mode is a really important question for Chrome-related issues.
There is a bug reported in (JRA-31774) where in both Chrome and Firefox, there is a JQL query length limitation of 2.000 characters, but IE doesn't have such a limitation. So sometimes a user creates a filter with more than 2.000 characters in IE and later tries to use this same filter in Chrome or Firefox errors are thrown because of the length limitation. (This has been fixed in JIRA 6.0.5)
With Jira 8.13.13, when viewing an Issue, if the browser window width is reduced (smaller than all elements on the Issue view) the vertical scrollbar disappears. No bug reports this behavior but it was validated that it is not occurring on versions 8.13.21 and 8.22.3.
In rare situations, a setting in a profile can cause page rendering to break even in Incognito mode - but works fine on other browsers. Creating a new profile solves this issue.
Safari:
No problems reported yet.
BIG-IP possible problems
After bypassing your BIG-IP proxy, the issue no longer occurs. A few topics to verify that may or may not be related:
- HTTP Compression - Directly affects the content encoding on the client side (browser)
Please also check the content from the "Browser workarounds" section of the page above. - Session Persistence - If the persistence is not correctly configured, it may cause communication problems in the browser.
- SSL shutdowns:
SSL Shutdowns
Configuring SSL shutdowns
With respect to the shutdown of SSL connections, you can configure two settings on the BIG-IP system: Unclean Shutdown and Strict Resume.
Disabling unclean SSL shutdowns
In an unclean shutdown, underlying TCP connections are closed without exchanging the required SSL shutdown alerts. However, you use the Unclean Shutdown setting to disable unclean shutdowns and thus force the SSL profile to perform a clean shutdown of all SSL connections by configuring this setting.
This feature is especially useful with respect to the Internet Explorer browser. Different versions of the browser, and even different builds within the same version of the browser, handle shutdown alerts differently. Some versions or builds require shutdown alerts from the server, while others do not, and the SSL profile cannot always detect this requirement or lack of it. In the case where the browser expects a shutdown alert but the SSL profile has not exchanged one (the default setting), the browser displays an error message.
By default, this setting is enabled, which means that the BIG-IP system performs unclean shutdowns of all SSL connections. To disable unclean shutdowns, locate the Unclean Shutdown setting and clear the check box.
Recurrent problems and its KB's:
Issue diagnosis | KB |
|---|---|
| The layout is broken after upgrading to JIRA 6.0 | https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/JIRAKB/Layout+broken+in+JIRA+6.0+in+all+the+browsers |
| The layout is broken in JIRA 6.0 (only in IE versions) | https://confluence.atlassian.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=361726443 |
| The workflow designer doesn't show up | https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/JIRAKB/Workflow+designer+not+showing+up |
Error message: "A script on this page is causing Internet Explorer to run slowly" | This is a Microsoft KB: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/175500 |
| Unable to modify sub-task priority on an Issue with Google Chrome | Bug reported
JRA-34758
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