Some really useful information and suggestions were deleted in the frenzy of hapless censorship. 

> Only thing useful I've found so far is backtick'ing everything. It seems like that keeps it from getting messed with.

> Slack does smart links right. It's your choice on whether to auto-unfurl, and you have the control to disable it "in future for this site" if you have it enabled by default - and MOST IMPORTANTLY - it doesn't REPLACE your content. It augments it. Think "showing a preview" if your content has a link to a image/webpage/etc.

> 1) You should have immediately removed this feature.  It won't break anything.  I'm guessing that the majority of admins do not want this and won't miss it when it is gone. 
> 2) Once you have figured out how to allow teams to enable this with appropriate controls, you could offer the option to re-enable it (or, given your track history, automatically re-enable it but then provide controls for us to turn it off again). 

[SmartLinks...]
> # Completely disregard all security and obfuscate all REAL URLs for the title of the final destination of the page (Just in case it might say "Never gonna give you up" (Which ironically is what they are doing with the URL, not giving it up)
> # Make it completely impossible for anyone who does ANY type of SEO work and needs to see the URL
> # Make it IMPOSSIBLE for any developer that works on LOCAL HOST, in a DEV, STAGE or PREPROD environment that uses a different structure than Production, which by my estimate is um... 99.9% of everyone.
> # Make it as Painful as humanly possible for any Project Manager to understand and follow changes from one page to another.
> # Make it IMPOSSIBLE to migrate any page and know which is which because both pages have the same Title
> # Make it IMPOSSIBLE for developers that use Angular and have a new build with the base structure setup or any vanilla project starting out.

> This [the "fix"] solves nothing from the admin perspective and added hundreds of hours in new additional training time to teach people how to make sure the tickets they make are readable for the dev team for literally NO REASON except Atlassian thinks its a good idea. I am completely boggled at why this issue has been so bungled. Hundreds of people have been crystal clear as to what is needed here: Make the URL style a default setting that admin can configure for their whole company.

> What if our links are behind authentication?  If I am documenting a list of links behind authentication, ALL of the links show the same rich information making Jira useless.  

> it attempts to change the names of python files to links, because ".py" is a tld

This issue needs to be re-opened, as it's still not fixed. SmartLinks are still a plague of inefficiency and harassment for users of the platform. You've completely wasted your efforts to keep the feature, as the only viable option is to completely remove SmartLinks. 

Does Atlassian realize their platform sends an email to everyone subscribed to an issue when a comment is deleted? If you're going to be tyrants, at least do it right! You're not supposed to tell the peons when you're censoring them! If you're going to edit history, don't broadcast it to the world! You're not even good at being despicable. 

I am also shocked at seeing that Atlassian employee Hana Ganesh is deleting useful historical comments from this ticket. *I am perplexed as to why they closed this request without effectively addressing the problem amid widespread user dissatisfaction with this feature. * People have hated this "enhancement" since the day it was introduced several years ago. I was mildly pleased they did not delete MY humble comment from AUG/11/2022. I must really be important....LOL

"Please give us a way to disable this stupid smart links auto link creator. It is driving our users crazy ever since we upgraded from 8.8.0 to 8.15.1 a few months ago.

When a user pastes text from windows notepad into the description field it turns their information into html drivel."

Also look at https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-84313

This is not the only ticket that the user Hana Ganesh has deleted comments on.

Today (11th December 2024) a user called Hana Ganesh, apparently an Atlassian employee, has started deleting comments for this issue that are critical of Atlassian's lack of response or plain indifference to the real pain that many Jira users felt because of this issue.  Far too many users, particularly organization-level customer Admins are frustrated and feel (quite rightly) as though their pleas for "sensible" features are ignored while Atlassian rolls out "fancy" features that (it seems) these users do not want. They just want Jira to work properly, and to have sane defaults, and to feel as though there was meaningful consultation with key end-users (like Admins) that have to deal with the fallout.

If this is the best that Atlassian can do, i.e. "sanitizing" comments, then shame on Atlassian! It's time to start taking user feedback seriously or to lose even more customers who have reached their frustration limit.

NOTE: The old comments can still be seen in the History.  And if they suddenly disappear, then it will show that there is "one set of features for Atlassian" and a different set for "ordinary" users who have been requesting the ability to remove accidentally-added private information from Jira issues that may have GDPR consequences.

It’s really annoying that this feature is enabled by default. I understand that the developers want to create a wow effect for new users, but when you start making a table with many links, fixing it becomes a nightmare. It’s great that you can now disable this function, but each user has to do it individually – there’s still no overall configuration!

So instead of doing what we ask as your customers, you do this junk instead?

<--

More detail in Smart Links with better features

We've upgraded Smart Links to show the information you need with improved features to increase your productivity.

The changes include modernised Inline, Card, Embed, and Hover display views with new layouts, shapes, colors, and fonts.

To view these changes:

1. Copy or type in a URL in a Jira comment or description.
2. Select the link.
3. Change how the link is displayed from the Smart Link toolbar.
4. Select Save.
5. Hover over the display and interact with link elements.

-->

How about you just let us disable them already?

At least you deliver something useful, not like this stubborn customer ignoring Atlassian. Thank you

We created a workaround. An app to bulk convert Smartlinks to URLs (or the reverse). Not exactly what is desired but for some a worthwhile management tool. It's called Link Editor by Easy Apps.

Do YOU click a link  with a masked URL?? I don't, and our team does not either!
There must be an option to disable Smart Links on the READER side, it's simply stupid if not rightous dangerous if the author can enforce masked links.

Plus, Smart Links are not compatible with the MS Teams Plugin "Jira Cloud" - instead of an URL all you get is an "unsupported inlineCard" notice! This makes the plugin totally useless.

Hi, can we have the ability to turn smartlinks off globally?

Thank you!

While we are confident that this will satisfy the needs of most users . . .

Where to you get this confidence? The current solution (feature is turned on as default for all user, options only apply on external links, whitelist, blacklist thrash) is far from what "most users" requested.

I am profoundly dismayed and incensed by both the manner in which the issue was resolved and the woefully inadequate communication, feeling as if they were being treated like three-year-old children. And I think I am not the only one. Shame on you

Hi there,

how man Jira user work in IT business and get in daily touch with URLs they have to check?

At least we and all of our customers do.

Kind regards in hope for a soon solution
Michael 

I don't agree that the resolution is "Fixed".

The feature is incredibly annoying and we have scores of people saying so, but the Jira team for some reason dismisses the customer base.

My company will still use Jira but you really need to listen to your customers.

@everyone

Reminder that Andre Mauritz offered up this

> If you want to take a bigger role in helping us build better products, or just want some face-to-face time to express your ideas, please feel free to book in some time with me via https://calendly.com/andremauritz/smart-links-feedback.

@Brad Ranks

I Agree completely.

@Alec Istomin

This is basically what I did, I blocked access completely to a number of domains/URLS used by Jira for analytics/resolving pasted content.  all but the converting text to clickable links related issues are no longer issues for me, but like @Brad Ranks said, it doesn't solve the vender/PM/external user issue since we cant force these settings on others devices.

@Andre Mauritz

You need to take these issues seriously, and re-open this as the original issue is NOT resolved

@Alec Istomin

Adding rules to a blocker may work for the ones YOU create, but if you have a PM or anyone else entering info, it still has the same MAJOR issue.

It's just a bad and poorly planned out (or not planned out at all) idea that has clearly backfired.

It needs to be removed because it does not benefit or help any users, in any way, shape or form.

Is this limited to external links only? What about (internal) issue links? The smart formatting is actually dumb formatting IMHO because it makes things very difficult to read and parse when referencing other issues. The important details can easily become lost. Don't tell me this is supposed to make things more convenient for people:

This is seriously one of the first things noticed and immediately disliked once we transitioned to Jira Cloud. We really need the ability to go back to the old way, or the ability to at least customize the transformed link. I know we can click on each link and edit it, but why include the Summary by default? It seems like it should be an option instead. I don't get why more people aren't complaining about that particular feature. Do people really not reference other issues like my team and I do?

EDIT: Well that just sucks, there's an option to attach an image, but not actual permissions for the image to get attached... 

Here's a link to the image that demonstrates the issue:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tuJjSQ2xiD5u3AG73OFR_IN2u-7vAjcP/view?usp=sharing

Any updates on getting this rolled out to Trello as well? 

this is not fixed, with default set to "Display URL" and specific exception for gitlab.com, links to gitlab.com show "sign in prompt" instead of the link URL

My fix was to add custom rules to uBlock to disable this feature:

||*.atlassian.net/gateway/api/object-resolver/check
||*.atlassian.net/gateway/api/object-resolver/providers
||*.atlassian.net/gateway/api/object-resolver/resolve
 

I've added an exception for github.com and yet it still shows "Can't find link" next to every URL that points to an internal repo. So this doesn't seem fixed.

What a silly "solution": Have every user manage smart link exceptions themselves vs. fixing this when the system doesn't recognize the link as a Atlassian product. Every time I paste a link to github the "smart text" shows "Can't find link" which is just misleading information. So I've now fixed my settings but every other one of my fellow employees will still see the misleading info until they fix their Link Preferences.

I've created a browser plugin to disable smart links as a work around for this issue https://github.com/MKorostoff/jira-dumb-links

I guess that means EVERYONE GO WATCH https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-79988

and keep up the pressure on that ticket (since this one's now closed)

This is the response I got from Atlassian Support (clearly they don't bother reading the comments here)

I can see how this would be a frustrating aspect keeping in mind its considerable business impact on more members.

• I tried to work with the developers to check if there is any possibility to re-open the feature request but was unable to connect with them since they work in a different timezone. However, I checked internally and raised a new bug fix as per your request and linked them with the old feature request.

• I do understand that this might not have been the solution you were looking for, and I sincerely apologize for this inconvenience. Please find the details below and also internally linked your ticket to the bug.
• JRACLOUD-79988: Option to Disable Smart Links completely and update the URLs directly in the field other than using edit link option

• While voting for an issue helps us gauge the customer's impact and interest in that particular feature, I am additionally grateful to you for your consideration of my earlier inputs. I do apologize for the inconvenience here again with the experience using smart links. As much as I do agree with the behavior that this feature should have, currently being at the support we are only enabled to channel your feedback to the product management teams by means of these public-facing tickets.

• Unfortunately, it would sadly not be possible for us at support to introduce this change as it would be a fundamental code change within Atlassian Cloud itself, which would be introduced by the dev teams themselves and updates relayed on the same feature request ticket.

However, if there should be anything else regarding this with which we could assist, kindly let us know and we would be happy to help in addressing your concerns!

Thanks & Regards,
–
Dishon Victor (Dishon)
Atlassian Cloud Support

I don't think this should be closed.

I have submitted a bug ticket to Atlassian regarding my earlier comment, https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-72429?focusedCommentId=3182076&page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels%3Acomment-tabpanel#comment-3182076

I won't hold my breath...

This is not fixed. Not only is the auto-hyperlinking a problem (in the description area and comments), but if you add a full URL as a web link to a Jira ticket, it automatically coverts to the page title and there is nothing you can do about it. Even if you paste the full URL AS the "Link text" it still automatically converts the link completely ignoring your value for "Link text".

I went back to Kyle W's userscript workaround. It's the only solution that still works:
https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-72429?focusedCommentId=2950243&page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels:comment-tabpanel#comment-2950243

Its ok, to fix it follow these instructions:

1. Create a new issue in the Jira Cloud board
2. Wait 3 years

Agreed, the 'product' was not 'fixed' 

As far as I am concerned this isn't actually fixed. The title is to disable smart links not to change the default display.

If I paste in a URL such as www.google.com and then change it to www.google.co.uk the text that displays changes but the underlying link does not. This is causing real issues for us.

Note without smart links (such as on this old version of Jira), this is not a problem!

Yes! Done and it works. No more meddling...

Be careful if you use Edge as your browser after changing your preferences. By default, if you copy the full URL from the address bar, Edge will apply the same shit destruction of the URL and trying to paste that into Jira will do the same thing as this worthless feature, but directly by the browser. Go to Edge settings > Share, copy and paste and change to "plain text".

> That’s because we want to respect content the way it was intended by the author

Andre - sorry I cant believe that one when you change "JIRA" to "Jira" on me all day long.

please also disable Tabs+ Pro. I never ever ever want it to render when I drop a link. Ever.

06202fd05d3d you are not asking me, but I agree with that sentiment. In Cloud, there previously was this section _https://<your-site>.atlassian.net/secure/admin/ViewUserDefaultSettings.jspa _ where you could do that exact thing. When New Issue View was first flipped on us in 2019, I thought that is where it should have gone and we could do exactly what you are saying.... I also thought every other feature that has launched since then for user preferences would work great there. I believe Atlassian does not have the ability to use that section any more, but really think it could be valuable for every use-case that is angering Admins.

c124c5bdcbf1 do you know if that is a possibility anymore? Is there a way we can talk to someone about using that section for things. It would help make everyone (Product, Executives, and your customers (us)) very happy. Just trying to help here... maybe it'll just make others sad though.

Andre,

You said "Admins will not yet be able to perform this setting for all their users. That’s because we want to respect the preference of each content creator."

You could give admins the ability to set the default behavior for the entire organization.  They could set it to be turned off by default, then individuals could turn it on if they want it. 

Doing this would simultaneously "respect the preference of each content creator" and satisfy the request for admin control that multiple users in these comments have requested.

Do you agree or disagree with this assessment?  If you disagree, can you explain why?  If you agree, then can you explain why you are continuing to refuse to give us admin control within our own organizations?

@David Redwine's suggestion, this is like using a Chainsaw for Brain Surgery.

Break everything, to fix one thing.

Disabling the Rich Text for JSM is not going to fix this problem in the slightest, it's just going to piss off all of marketing because they can't send bold or italic in their requests to prod, and all the dev and qa who are working in Software will still have to change every single URL by hand, one at a time. How I wish your solution would fix anything at all!

Thanks David Redwine's suggestion.  However it is not going to be applicable in my opinion since Rich Text Editor functionality is critical aspect of users operations.  It will also impact how the project UI functionality and not just for customer portal UI. 

You can disable the links detection in customer portal by disabling the Rich Text Editor in Jira admin → System → Rich Text Editor.

You can refer to https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirakb/jira-service-management-how-to-disable-the-wiki-renderer-in-the-description-field-of-the-customer-portal-view-1086419212.html for more info.

This is a global setting which affects Description and Comments for all Customer Portals.

When disabled, the text will not be converted to wiki markup link when creating via portal.

So this new 'feature' isn't live yet, right? But will go live in October? And this is now allowing users to set link preferences for themselves? Seems bizarro and convoluted, but as long as there is a giant announcement of when this goes live and a comment in here to that effect, then I will be telling my development/testing team to IMMEDIATELY change to URL setting and that it is NOT OPTIONAL because we – like MOST if not ALL Jira software users - have multiple development servers and we MUST see the URL. 

PS: If this feature is already live, I am too stupid to find it. Please someone clarify where this is. 

The fact this issue has been open over 3 years and Atlassian ignoring both the security concerns and the preferred solution by the vast majority of people in this issue suggests there are other forces at play. Perhaps the sunk cost fallacy, perhaps some revenue stream i'm not aware of, who knows. 

Whatever the reason this is rapidly eroding trust in the company and their management. As Gina said above, development effort was sunk into "enhancing" this feature further which suggest development prioritisation is completely broken. 

Agreed - Entering a link and not knowing how your target audience is going to see it is even worse than it was before.

Just remove the smartlink feature. Nobody wants it.

This change is not what we wanted, we want to set the link type for our entire instance. Having some devs/qa/prod people see the link one way and others seeing it another way is AWFUL. And having to change each link is tedious and obnoxious. Can you please actually fix this or make a way to remove this "feature" from an entire instance?

@Gina Burke That's what I was thinking. The icons don't so much bother me, as I now know what they do, but the issue I now have is that the popup menu displays before it is fully loaded and 90% of the time I end up clicking on an option that was under my pointer, but moved and is no longer under the pointer by the time I actually click, therefore, I've clicked on something I did not intend to. I have now wasted my time and I have to close whatever dialog came up and retry - WAIT - and then click. Not better. Worse because the popup at least didn't cause this UI anomaly before.

I think that my favorite part about this saga is the recently updated UI of this feature that everyone wants gone. Previously, clicking would give you a text drop down, which has now been replaced with a nonsensical icon dropdown. So, they opted to put dev resources and time towards this feature, just, not in a way anyone wanted LOL  Amaazzzing.

This seems to have gotten worse - it's now hanging trying to resolve the url half the time for me

Please!!! Remove/toggle this "feature"!!

Ok, that all sounds fine... but can we completely turn off link conversion?! I don't want anything ever converted to a link unless I explicitly tell it to do so. 

@Jimmy Soh

Looks like the only new one for me is /gateway/api/directory/graphql

FYI you can block via wildcard, so 
/gateway/api/object-resolver/* works

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JSWCLOUD-21494?focusedCommentId=3144181&page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels%3Acomment-tabpanel#comment-3144181

In a related ticket, someone recently stated there are new endpoints that parse URLs. Posting it here for some visibility:

Originally I managed to block the URL parsing but it seems that the Atlassian team created new APIs to circumvent the blocking in the last 2 weeks or so.. 

The latest URLs that need to be blocked are:-

/gateway/api/object-resolver/check

/gateway/api/gasv3/api/v1/batch

/gateway/api/directory/graphql

/gateway/api/object-resolver/resolve/batch

/rest/analytics/1.0/publish/bulk

If you are using the tampermonkey or greasemonkey extension workaround that was introduced in this thread, you may need to update the config accordingly.

@Andy Martin 

Months? If it were only so! Look at the creation date of this ticket. It was more than 3 years ago.

I get angrier every time I have to change tickets to "Display URL". When we're off JIRA, I will dance the dance of joy.

For 10 days or so, we are able to use the Ctrl-Shift-V key combination to paste links and bypass this stupid feature.

What puzzles me is that this is not what was explained in the ticket, so probably some other developer agreed with us and fixed it the simple way

Plain text pasting in the editor on Cmd+Shift+v

ROLLING OUT

To stop links from becoming Smart Links when creating content in the editor, just use Cmd/Ctrl  Shift  V when you paste content.

Use this command to paste copied links to keep URLs in their original format.

You can also use Cmd/Ctrl + Z to change a link back to its original URL if it has already converted to a Smart Link.

Please give us a way to disable this stupid smart links auto link creator.  It is driving our users crazy ever since we upgraded from 8.8.0 to 8.15.1 a few months ago.

When a user pastes text from windows notepad into the description field it turns their information into html drivel.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ivRv4jfZWWqP5DW5kYGn5SVu15tzZFgq/view?usp=sharing

becomes:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1v_KqeNDHRmtxVHWyWFjTQ1qBn4pyOzEj/view?usp=sharing