Problem Definition

When an issue doesn't meet the criteria of a workflow validator the error messages aren't intuitive to resolving the validation issue.

i.e.

• Have a workflow validator that checks that the parent status is in a particular status for a subtask on a workflow.

If you try to create the subtask you get an error that it has unsupported content in an issue field and to contact your admin to check the log file for specific info.

Error creating issue:

We see the exact error in the logs:

com.atlassian.jira.exception.CreateException: Transition is not authorized because current Issue's parent Issue should be in one of the following statuses: [To Do, Selected for Development, Reopened, Scheduled for development, In Progress, Backlog]

Suggested Solution

Provide more specific information relative to the validation error via the UI instead of the logs similar to a workflow helper such as where is my field available from the issue view to identify the cause.

Workaround

1.) Reproduce the issue.
2.) Tail the logs at the time or check the general time frame the issue occurred in the logs.