Hi,
According to http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/JIRA040/Performing+Text+Searches?clicked=jirahelp#AdvancedSearching%28newdraftfor4.1%29-EscapingSpecialCharacters%3A\ it should be possible to search for a special character using an \ escape prefix. But in reality, it isn't.
For example, if you are interested in finding issues with [ in the summary, and in the simple search querying for

/[

- nothing comes back.
Switching to advanced search presents you with

summary ~ "\\["

and there is no way to edit this query and make it work.
Using JQL escape syntax doesn't work either:

summary ~ "\u005b"  ->broken search

I'm also opening a functionality bug, but the documentation needs to be updated as well.
Thanks
Lena

• following https://support.atlassian.com/browse/JSP-69132