Issue Summary

When cloning an issue in a company-managed project, the Description field in the cloned issue loses its rich text formatting. Markdown characters (e.g., **, #, _, backticks) are displayed as plain text instead of being rendered as formatted text. The source issue renders correctly; the clone does not.

This behavior is consistent with JRACLOUD-81555, which covers the same rendering failure during issue creation. However, JRACLOUD-81555 was closed as "Won't Fix" with the expectation that the Default Text Renderer deprecation would resolve it. As of April 2026, the issue persists for the clone operation.

Key Prerequisite

This bug only manifests when the project's Field Configuration has the Description field renderer set to "Default Text Renderer" (plain text). This is a legacy configuration typically found in instances that were migrated from Server/Data Center to Cloud. The affected customer's field config was named "Default Field Configuration (migrated)", which is consistent with this scenario.

Since the admin UI no longer exposes the renderer option (due to the ongoing deprecation of the Default Text Renderer), reproducing this requires setting the renderer to "text" via the Field Configuration REST API:
PUT /rest/api/3/fieldconfiguration/{id}/fields

Steps to Reproduce

Phase 1 — Set up the legacy renderer state in Jira Server/Data Center

1. In a Jira Server or Data Center instance, open a company-managed project's Field Configuration (e.g., "Default Field Configuration").
2. Confirm (or set) the Description field's renderer to "Default Text Renderer" (plain text). On Server/DC this option is still available in the admin UI.
3. Create an issue in this project and add markdown/rich text formatting in the Description (e.g., {}bold{}, # heading, italic, backticks for inline code).

Phase 2 — Migrate the instance to Jira Cloud

1. Migrate the Jira Server/DC instance to Jira Cloud using the Jira Cloud Migration Assistant (JCMA) or equivalent migration path.
2. After migration, verify that the Field Configuration carried over (it will typically appear as "Default Field Configuration (migrated)") and that the Description field renderer is still set to "Default Text Renderer".

Note: As of the current Jira Cloud admin UI, the renderer option is no longer exposed due to the ongoing deprecation of the Default Text Renderer. The migrated configuration retains the legacy setting, but it cannot be changed back through the UI — only via the Field Configuration REST API.

Phase 3 — Reproduce the clone failure in Jira Cloud

1. In the migrated Jira Cloud project, open the issue created in Step 3. Confirm the Description renders correctly with rich text formatting.
2. Clone the issue using the Clone action in the Jira UI.
3. Open the cloned issue and inspect the Description field.

Alternative setup (without a full migration)

If reproducing via migration is not practical, the same state can be achieved directly in a Jira Cloud test instance by setting the Description field's renderer to "text" via the Field Configuration REST API:
PUT /rest/api/3/fieldconfiguration/{id}/fields
This bypasses the admin UI restriction and reproduces the same legacy configuration that migrated instances inherit.

Expected Results

The cloned issue's Description field should display the same rich text formatting as the source issue.

Actual Results

The cloned issue's Description field displays raw markdown characters as plain text. Formatting such as bold, headings, inline code, and lists are not rendered.

Workaround

Edit the cloned issue's description, delete the content, and re-type or paste it back. This forces re-rendering through the ADF engine.

Alternatively, remove the description before cloning and add it manually after the clone is created.

Additional notes

This issue occurs only in company-managed projects that use the Default Text Renderer, not in team-managed projects (which always use the rich text/ADF renderer).

The renderer setting for the Description field can no longer be changed in the Jira admin UI due to the ongoing deprecation of the Default Text Renderer. It can still be updated to "Wiki Style Renderer" via the The Jira Cloud platform REST API, which may prevent future occurrences but does not fix already-affected issues.