Incredible - how can the support possibly be this bad.

Fix it!!

Just adding noise to this ticket. How is it possible that they haven't found a way to do an exact phrase search? ... in 4 years...

Piotr Święcicki, you closed this issue as a duplicate of JRACLOUD-21372. 

But this issue is a bug because it used to work in previous Jira versions, while JRACLOUD-21372 is a suggestion. So, it is like Atlassian treats regressions now? Mark them as suggestions? 

You guys broke existing functionality and now act like it never existed. Not cool. 

Atlassian:  Just curious about what happens to the 295 votes to fix this bug? I would hope that those votes would roll into JRACLOUD-21372 (which has 366 votes today).

While there may be overlap (a few people who voted for both), it looks like a LOT of votes will be essentially thrown away by closing this bug.

If you do not have a way to address this problem, then I'd suggest that your New Features Policy is broken.

The hundreds of us who voted for THIS issue would like to know if our votes matter or not.

Closing as a duplicate of JRACLOUD-21372 issue.

Just to be clear the paid add-on is not a valid work-around either for many customers, it is UX based and not API.

Hi,

It's been nearly 4 years since this bug was issued. Still, the only workaround is to pay for an addon. It is very impactful for us as it may cause to miss incidents and this is a very basic feature we expect to have by default in Jira. Could you please speed up the correction of this bug?

Thanks, Théo

Dear "Unassigned", when will you decide you "gathered" enough "impact" to actually take action to resolve this travesty?

This issue really needs addressing. Searching for an exact phrase should be core functionality as with all other search engines. I can't believe this wasn't even considered during design. It's like driving a car with no headlights.

If I need to search for "notable_owners_lookup" in a stack trace how am I supposed to find what I'm searching for in hundreds or thousands of stemmed pointless results?

PLEASE set an increased evaluation and priority on this.

not being able to match on a string as opposed to single word is simply not an acceptable answer and does not posture you or your clients to do top level support

Hi,

Please provide a fix in Jira itself, and this is pending for the last two years, so many customers asking for it.

Thanks,
Sujan

Please update this ticket in light of the discussion at https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-21372

I have to agree with @Krista Stellar.

I too am stuck with automation rules as well as some, what should be simple reporting requirements from our clients and program management teams due to this bug. 

If the workaround is "use ScriptRunner", perhaps Atlassian should pay for that add on for customers until they can get their software working as documented OR buy the Adaptavist code and implement it.

As it is, the only people "feeling the pain" of this issue are Jira customers. The pain needs to be felt by Atlassian, which would provide motivation to resolve it. 

Based upon the update provided in January and the message of that indicating 'Expect to hear an update on our progress within the next 6 months.' I'm sad to see there has been nothing posted since.

I'm trying to put together a sophisticated automation rule but alas I am stuck because I can't do an exact string match which seemed like it would be an OBVIOUS option for JQL. Shocked to see that it is not. Even more shocked to see this request has been around, in one shape or another, for years. And finally DISMAYED there has been no update on the status in the timeframe promised in the last update.

In my view there is little point in adding whiz-bang functionality like automation rules if you can't use a basic exact string match condition in said rules. If anyone is watching and listening, would love an update on this.

Oh, and BTW, suggesting that using ScriptRunner is a workaround is ridiculous given that a) it bumps the cost for users and b) suggests to me "the developers at Atlassian can't seem to figure this out but the developers at Adaptavist have cracked the case so I guess we don't need to bother". I love Adaptavist and ScriptRunner, but not all our clients have access and it all feels so weak.

• https://jira.atlassian.com/secure/AddComment!default.jspa?id=773009

From what I can understand I've noticed a related case that this bug issue hopefully will fix:

Steps to reproduce

1. Add a new comment to an issue - "AB-40000"
2. Search for "AB-40000" --> yields correct result
3. Search for "40000" --> no result
4. Used this syntax : text ~ 'AB-*' ---> yields correct result.
5. Used this syntax : text ~ '*40000' --> errors out.

Expected result: Both step 3 and 5 should yield correct result.

Atlassian, what's going on here?  Why is this a low priority issue? It's clear this is wasting so much time and resources. 

this is good news!

schnederle1604574040 I believe the decision has been taken only a few days ago, after an increased customer activity was noticed on this ticket and the linked one for the same issue. So, I cannot say it for sure, but most likely there was still nothing official at the time you opened your support request. 

@Dario B - JRACLOUD-21372 was opened 11 Years ago ... JRACLOUD-69263 just 3 Years ago ... "only 11 Years" sounds like a Quick Fix in Atlassian Time!

All jokes aside, it would be very important and good if this problem was finally resolved after a decade ... 
(Sad Support didn't mention that to me in my Ticket regarding this issue)

schnederle1604574040 jack503457770,

I am not sure when/how this bug is going to be addressed, but I can see that the linked bug ticket for the same issue (JRACLOUD-21372 Allow exact-text searching in JQL) was added to short term backlog 4 days ago and the below comment was added:

zbeisekov added a comment - 4 days ago
Hi everyone,

Thank you for your votes and thoughts on this issue.

We fully understand that many of you are dependent on this functionality.

After careful consideration, we've decided to prioritize Exact-text searching in JQL on Jira Cloud roadmap. We hope to start development after our current projects are completed.

Expect to hear an update on our progress within the next 6 months.

Kind regards,

Jira Cloud Product Management

I will try to clarify this ASAP.

Maybe migration of Server customers to the Cloud will make it more important. AFAIK this bug does not exist in Server. It was introduced when Cloud and Server were separate products already. I didn't test it though.

Just got Feedback from Atlassian Support regarding this Bug ... seems like we don't get this fixed within a reasonable amount of time (... I already assume "reasonable time" at Atlassian with several years ...)

Support Answer:

Thank you for bearing with me while I looked into this as talked to our devs.
I received a reply explaining that due to the type of bug and low impact of the same this bug is not present in our current roadmap.

@Ron are you using the cloud version?  I think we went through this before, perhaps on one of the other tickets, where it works as expected on the non cloud version but is broken in the cloud.

@Ron Chan - just tested this and looks like 
description ~ "\"Cat and Dog\""
matches the same issues as:
description ~ "\"and Dog Cat\""
so the escaping of the quotes doesn't seem to make any difference.

@Ron Chan,

But your query also returns issues with descriptions like "Cat and Fish and Dog".

This is exactly the case as described in the summary of this bug. And it simply means the exact search does not work. 

I don't believe if it was mentioned on this ticket or on a similar ticket, but we've been using this "exact" search syntax and it works for us

For example
Search string - "Cat and Dog"
JQL -

 description ~ "\"Cat and Dog\"" 

You need to wrap \" around the string

For a process tool, this is an ESSENTIAL function to work correctly!!!

This is ridiculous ... this Bug was reported 2018, now we have 2021 and still not fixed ... for us it is cruical to have excact matches on some Fields ... but it seems we are left in the Rain here ... again ...

This is an issue that should not be closed but fixed. An example JQL search we would often need to perform in our helpdesk and which fails to recover appropriate results is e.g.

description ~ "WooCommerce Product Search"

This fails to retrieve requests that contain the exact phrase "WooCommerce Product Search" but retrieves any request that contains those three terms anywhere in the description.

I would vote not to close. I'm still interested and I don't feel like closing something because we don't know if/when we might fix is a good reason to close. However, it would be great to get a decision and even if that decision is "Won't do", while I would be disappointed, it would be a decision and as such appreciated.

Atlassian, please due us all a favor and close this ticket. You are not gathering interest for 2+ years. You know you're not going to implement it so let's not pretend.

Adding another +1 to this - This being broken also causes certain add-ons to have missing functionality such as Checklist Pro.

So, Atlassian is breaking their own EULA I think. 

This feature used to work and was broken over 2 years ago. More, there is no workaround available. It all means that it should be reported as Bug of Critical priority. 

@All - Got reply from my email to CEOs above (see https://getsupport.atlassian.com/servicedesk/customer/portal/36/CEO-7061 ).  Says this is being dealt with as an "open feature" request at https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-21372 which currently isn't on any roadmap.  So, looks like it's a case of "don't hold your breath...".

@Tom   ... etc etc 

@Steve Halsey

At moments like this, I need Jira to be more like a social media platform so I could click "Like" on your post regarding the email.

Copy of my email to the CEO's about this submitted at https://www.atlassian.com/pl/company/contact/contact-ceos:-

Hi Scott and Mike,

Hope you're doing well. Just writing to let you know that Jira is absolutely, indispensably brilliant apart from one major bug - which is that you can't search for an exact phrase (see
https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-69263)

If I've found a bug in our software which prints an error message e.g. "Terminal not live" and I need to see if someone else has raised a ticket about that issue I search for text ~ "\"Terminal not live\"" but I get back hundreds of issues which contain those words, but not that exact phrase. This means I've got to possibly waste time raising a duplicate issues, and even worse someone may do a fix while another person is working on the same fix.

Phrase search is a very basic requirements to use a tool like Jira and you've already got 92 people saying it's affecting them at _https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-69263_

You've fixed this problem recently in Confluence (hooray!). For our sanity (and to maintain your amazing reputation), please consider increasing the priority of this bug that has been open for 17 months.

Thanks

Steve.

This, in combination with JRACLOUD-68752:

summary ~ "test_mytest.test_ha.test_ha_switchover" 

**(HA switchover)

Brings this result:

test_mytest.test_ha.test_db_switchover 

(DB switchover)

Support suggestion: why don't you create a custom field.

A bit pathetic, frankly.

This bug makes it impossible to use some useful apps, such as Checklist Pro!

It's described in their docs. And so I have to refuse it!

As well as Jack's suggestion about contacting the CEO's, I suggest that you raise a support ticket for this issue.  I suspect that the "Support reference count" field is used for prioritising these types of issues.

The cynic in me also expects if you have a paid subscription, especially an expensive one, your vote will count for more. 

Please fix this so that it will return exact matches at least for a double quoted multi-word phrase.

For those who desperately need this feature and feel powerless posting comments here, there is a way to contact Mike and Scott (Atlassian founders) at https://www.atlassian.com/pl/company/contact/contact-ceos

Obviously, these are not Mike and Scott, who will read that message, but it is another channel to spread our pain. 

Exact search worked from the very beginning of Jira AFAIR (might be even written by the team where Mike and Scott were still actively coding), but someone broke it around 3 years ago. 

I can't imagine how Atlassian could put "Low" priority for such painful regression and now waits "gathering impact" 🤦‍♂️

Cheers, 
Jack

I cannot, without resorting to unprofessional language, adequately convey how frustrated and angry I am at this bug and Atlassian's response to it.

Jira began its life as a tool for enabling software developers. We have some projects where the issue count is well over 10,000, and I know we're not unique (just look at this issue key). How am I expected to find relevant issues for things like variable names, table names, and things of that ilk when I cannot use an exact word search? These are patently different searches: "lookup_date" and "lookup date". And yet Jira search sees them as identical. That's not a small bug, that's a catastrophic failure of the search engine.

It's not like I fail to empathize with the folks working on Jira - I know what it's like to have more work than time, with deadlines and multiple TOP priorities, where the issues keep coming faster than you can address them.

A failure of this magnitude, in what is essentially a core competency of Jira, and then to offer such a tepid and insulting response as "use a paid add-on," is the height of idiocy. I already pay for Jira, and the search is effectively crippled. Will Atlassian cover my costs for paying for that add-on? I think not. You're essentially TELLING me that you want me to spend my money with someone other than Atlassian. If that's the message you want to send, then perhaps I should listen, and do exactly that.

Please, please, please, I'm begging you - get this fixed.

+1 – On Jira Cloud; I can't search for the specific string I want. These 3 searches all provide the exact same results. If Bugzilla can do it; surely Jira can too?

text ~ "\"Changed user uid in AD\"~0"
text ~ "\"Changed user uid in AD\""
text ~ "Changed user uid in AD"

• https://jira.atlassian.com/secure/AddComment!default.jspa?id=773009

Genuinely how is it possible that there's no ability to search for an exact match without a paid add-on. 

@all, please note that this bug is regression.

Our customers used it before and it worked as expected. When I was raising this issue with Atlassian 2 years ago, their documentation still stated the original non-buggy behavior (as you can see in the first comment by Mark Lassau). 

@ashohaimi,

I have already talked to ScriptRunner support and they don't have a suitable solution to find a phrase on multiple fields and projects. It would requires to write 4 to 5 lines each time we need to search for a text. And of course, a paid plugin can't be considered a workaround, unless you promise to solve the bug in 30 days.

I'm really disappointed with your answer. You must be kidding to consider that a workaround. Please, remove that. 

+1.
An add-on, specially a paid one, shouldn't be classified as valid workaround for a product.

I understand "~" as CONTAINS not returning only a exact match.
But there must be a "=" to return only exact matches.

Or just use "*" as the known pattern for partial matches:
 - "word1 word2" = exact match
 - "word1 * word2" = anything between "word1" and "word2"
 - "* word1 word2" = ends with "word1 word2"
 - "word1 word2 *" = begins with "word1 word2"

@Ahmad,

We live with this problem for almost 2 years. 30 days of a free trial to workaround the problem does help at all. 

Definitely in agreement for "full text search". Would be extremely helpful and should not require special syntax unless searching for special/reserved charactersj.