JiraAlign Connector Broken and Corrupting Description Fields - SHOWSTOPPER BUG - being ignored?
Asked by Jason Singleton:

When our team members are creating Epics in JiraAlign (top screenshot), the description field is coming out badly garbled in Jira (bottom screenshot) and creating them in Jira seems to be doing the same thing in JiraAlign.

To make matters worse, this seems to be a known issue on the Atlassian side, high priority, and there seem to be no plans to investigate or address it.

<https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JIRAALIGN-704>

Can someone explain what's going on here? Why isn't this being treated with critical severity?

![Capture1.PNG](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/105479i866000A4B3DFD952/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Capture1.PNG")![Capture2.PNG](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/105480i4873AA4D91C1BF46/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "Capture2.PNG")


Answers:
author: matthew_rohr
body: This is a known bug that has been open with Atlassian for many months and has to do with the difference in HTML Fabric Editors between Jira and Jira Align - they don't use the same one so it causes HTML tags to show up in either side and can definitely cause corruption issues.

Here's the bug for reference, I highly recommend adding yourself as an Affected Customer to help bump this up the list for a fix.

<https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JIRAALIGN-704>


author: Tina Behers
body: [@Jason Singleton](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/4038960) [@matthew_rohr](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3632723) [@Jeffrey Multach](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3910226)

There is a setting in Admin -\> Jira Settings - \> Jira Setup (tab) -\> Settings (section) -\>

**Rich Text Format**

Options in the dropdown:

None (plain text) - Recommended setting - in general - this causes no data corruption when "native" language is used in Jira

HTML - This options was developed in 2017 (ish) for use with a very specific marketplace plug in (that I no longer remember the name of) and will cause HTML "corruption" of text written to Jira instances where this plug in is not in use.

Jira Rendered field - Jira instance using Jira rendered "wiki"/HTML type font.

If your Jira Admin has not enabled the special font in Jira, AND you are not using the HTML plug in Jira this setting should be set to NONE.

Hope this helps.


author: Jeffrey Multach
body: I have noticed the same problem going from Jira Align to Jira but not in the reverse direction.

The field in question is straight text (and not multimedia) in Jira and when entered in Jira Align, the connector is not converting it but sending the marked up tagged version.

Irritating is that this happens on other events which change other aspects of a Jira Align entry, even when you do not edit the description.

You can see the same thing if you edit a multimedia field in Jira and then export it.

I suspect this is not easy to resolve. If you have simple text only, then the connector should be smart enough to strip off the tags when moving to Jira.

On the other hand, if this field in Jira Align has other than simple text, then there will always be an issue (e.g., strip out tags, drop tables, etc.) if the Jira Align field has anything other than plain text. So when you go back from Jira to Jira Align you will have wiped out your Jira Align formatting,

comments: author: Jason Singleton
body: .


author: Jason Singleton
body: This seems to be called out in the integration documentation with no remediation or workaround suggested.

<https://help.jiraalign.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000088393-10X-Jira-Data-Synchronization>

What exactly are we supposed to do here? What exactly do we need to install on our Jira Server (or DC) instance to make this work? This is harming our adoption of the product.

comments: author: Tina Behers
body: [@jason](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/960668)

As I mentioned earlier in the post, the "HTML" option in Jira Align Jira Settings- Jira Setup - was built for use with SINGLE SPECIFIC ++plugin++, (which I no longer remember the name of, and don't know if the developers at Jira Align still know either.)

If you are using another HTML plug in, ++**there will be problems**++. Simply because they are not all "created equally" nor do they all work in the same way. As you know one can only code for what one expects to happen.

++***To solve this problem:***++

Step one: Check with your System Admin for Jira (if that's not you) to see what markup or plugins are being used.

Available options in System Admin settings and matching Jira Align settings:

\*Please **NOTE** these are for Jira OOTB settings and will not necessarily apply if you are using a marketplace plugin for text rendering.

If your Jira environment is using "WIKI STYLE" Render for text - then the Jira Align setting under Admin - Jira Settings- Jira Setup- Field: Rich Text Format: ++must be++ "Jira Rendered Field"

If your Jira environment is using "Default text Renderer" - then the Jira Align setting under Admin - Jira Settings- Jira Setup- Field: Rich Text Format: ++must be++ "Plain Text"

If your Jira environment is using a marketplace plugin for text formatting - then the Jira Align setting ++MOST LIKELY++ to help is Admin - Jira Settings- Jira Setup- Field: HTML -

\*\*\* unless you are using the exact plugin this option was built for this MAY NOT fully alleviate the problem\*\*\*\*\*

Lastly - a few links to help understand the root cause of this issue.

Even with the JIRA renderer fields can be formatted differently . Here's a link to Jira Article on renders that may help...<https://confluence.atlassian.com/adminjiraserver/configuring-renderers-938847270.html>

Another link specific to renderers in Jira: <https://confluence.atlassian.com/display/JIRA043/Configuring+Renderers#ConfiguringRenderers-RendererTypes>

Hopefully this will help alleviate the pain you are experiencing.


author: Tina Behers
body: [@matthew_rohr](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3632723) [@Jeffrey Multach](/t5/user/viewprofilepage/user-id/3910226)