JRASERVER-74122: Since version 9.4.0 caused significant issues within the user community, and these were addressed in version 9.4.6, this problem JRASERVER-77658 is likely to be annoying for them again.

JRASERVER-5443: The manual changes made by users to the comment sort order will now be retained in the user profile. This means the sorting order setting will remain the same until the users change it again.

While the user profile will honor these specific changes, we want the default sort order to be "Oldest first." Therefore, JRASERVER-77658 is the bug affecting us. I strongly believe that the priority and severity of this bug should be increased.

why is this fix not provided for LTS 9.12.x ?

@Alex - Aha!  Yes.  Having the comment section in a fixed position in the browser window (at the bottom) while the existing comments can be scrolled without scrolling the comment input box would be even better!

I will refer to comments like @JM R. to explain my interpretation of "fixed".

This will probably need to be a separate ticket, but to reiterate, a good and proper "fix" would be to have the comment input box "fixed" at the bottom of the browser window, independent of comment scrolling. And full credit to @Alex for stating this.

They wouldn't be Atlassian if they were to (timely) implement the little nice things (as the community asks).
Clearly UX/QA failed when the changed sort order became the default without a (user-based) option to override.
And it failed again when a deemed solution was provided.

@BruceR I probably couldn't describe it well. I totally understand the issue you describe!

With the solution I described the comment entry box is "next to the most recent comment". But as it's fixed you can actually scroll further through the comments (while also having the box) and read either the latest or older comments. That's actually a very good solution.

With "independent from the comments" I mean it's neither fixed at the top nor at the bottom within the comments section. It's fixed below and "outside the comment section and therefore "independent" from the scrolling state of the comment list. You can read through all the comments (in the order you like) while having the text input box available.

@Alex - I went to reply to your comment, but now I have to scroll up and down, up and down, to see your comment again, then type a little more, then see your comment again.  My point was that the comment entry box should be next to the most recent comment, whether that's at the top or bottom, but next to the most recent, and most definitely not "independent from the comments".

@BruceR That problem is already solved. The comment box is now fixed, visible/accessible at the bottom of the screen (independent from the comments) and you can scroll through all comments while also having the input box (at least in our Jira DC installation - not in this one here).

The next step on this topic would be - if comments are sorted newer on top, then adding a comment should occur ABOVE the most recent comment, not stuck at the bottom under the first comment.

Most often, you are replying to the most recent comment, and it would be nice to still see that while typing your new comment.

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRASERVER-3454?focusedId=20676&page=com.atlassian.jira.plugin.system.issuetabpanels%3Acomment-tabpanel#comment-20676

20 years to implement this - wow.

As we say in Germany: Better late than never. Having said this, you get a

I'm not sure what that means for people at Infor.  What is DC 9.13?  Will this change ever be available to us?  Fore both on-prem and the cloud version we are migrating to?

Would love to see this resolved! Every time I get logged out (automatically), I have to redo the sort for every tab. This new behavior is not ideal.

Please backport this to LTS 9.4 and 9.12 (when released). Otherwise we're going to be waiting over a year for this simple feature.

This JIRA is specifically about allowing each individual user to choose their preferred order. If what you want is to get back the previous behavior where all users had the same order of "oldest first", instead of "newest first", that's already possible if you have the latest versions if JIRA installed. See the link to the instructions in Ralf's response.

Change the default order for comments

Unfortunately this bug is causing a high negative impact to my team. We are used to having our comments and information sorted oldest -> newest, and when we upgraded our Jira to 9.x we're now in a constant state of having to switch back to the old sort order.

It regularly causes mistakes or missed information, especially when working with an overseas team.

Please PLEASE fix this. Defaulting to newest first is honestly awful. Combined with hybrid work, people regularly get logged off the Jira instance and have to log back in, then resort again.

It's kind of ridiculous that this wasn't implemented along with the Jira 9 comment sort changes particularly because the new comment box is at the bottom. These UI attributes don't make sense together and it is why my users revolted on the new comment sort.

My userscript https://greasyfork.org/scripts/472161 might help some people following this Jira issue.

There is a hidden option that allows a "floating comment" box that is always available so you don't have to scroll to the bottom.

If you don't like the behavior of pressing m scrolling to the bottom of the page, type a period and then enough of "add comment" to highlight the "Add comment" issue action, then press Enter. This will open a floating comment box in your current page position.

I find this is extremely useful in cases when I need to read something back in the thread while composing my comment. I'm using it now to enter this comment while reading Paul Smith's July 11th comment.

Jonathan Felder would your script also with the newest 9.4.6 where "sorting" became a makeover? I tried but nothing happens here; sadly I'm not a js pro to debug (or know what else could go wrong). At least the button title seems to have changed to "Reverse sort direction" (no matter which direction is active, but as 'newest first' still is default the script should do what it's supposed to do ;)

+1 to everything else. Did Atlassian finally wake up? 

Update: Used the script comment-3320988 of Marnix Klooster and it works like a charm, out of the box, on my 9.4.6. Thanks!

Not only is it a pain to have to read someone's comment and then scroll to the bottom to add your own (while remembering all the info you're responding to), if there's a lot of info in the description, several attachments, and a few links it's hard to find the newest comment without collapsing all other fields.  Even finding the option to sort from Oldest to Newest is a challenge.  Please add a user option to select their preference.

There is a hidden option that allows a "floating comment" box that is always available so you don't have to scroll to the bottom.

That'd be a nice thing, too, as having the newest on top is something we can get used to (some prefer it), but then having the "Add comment" at the bottom is inconvenient.

But that's a different feature request I guess...

There is a hidden option that allows a "floating comment" box that is always available so you don't have to scroll to the bottom. It's discussed in some related JIRA but a few minutes of searching and I couldn't find it . Maybe someone else will post it here.

We tried this for a while but some people didn't like it: it's not 100% reliable as it sometimes covers up content at the bottom of the screen and I've seen situations where I've added a comment and that comment is not displayed, until I refresh my screen (the first time or two I added duplicates because I thought my first try disappeared).

I see this was just updated yesterday. Any ETA on when it would be available?

We just upgraded last weekend and while many like that comments are now sorted by newest first, there are those grumbling about the comment button being down at the bottom of the page.

This is still an issue, I would have hope would be resolved in 9.4.6. but it wasn't. Basically every time someone, who has a diffrent sorting order preference than the instance default, logs out of the instance, they have their preference reset. For instances that have login policies that require frequent re-logs this is something between buggy and plain frustrating. 

Thanks Jonathan. 

I wrote a userscript that sorts by oldest first and loads all of the items as well.

I did not test it extensively, but it seems to work for my purposes.

// ==UserScript==
// @name         jira-fix
// @include      https://your-jira/*
// @require      https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.6.3/jquery.min.js
// @require      https://gist.github.com/raw/2625891/waitForKeyElements.js
// @grant        GM_addStyle
// ==/UserScript==

(function() {
  'use strict';

  function clickSort() {
    if (document.getElementById("sort-button").title == "Click to view oldest first") {
      document.getElementById("sort-button").click();
    }
  }

  function clickLoadAll() {
    var loadall = document.querySelector('[data-load-all-message="select to load all"]');
    if (loadall !== null) { loadall.click(); }
  }
  
  waitForKeyElements("#sort-button", clickSort);
  waitForKeyElements(".show-more-tab-items", clickLoadAll);
})();

There are two very different use cases that represent two different personas at work here.

1. The user who mainly wishes to keep up to date with changes to Jira issues. A manager, scrum leader, etc. who views but generally does not comment in a Jira issue may prefer to see new commentary at the top of the issue.
2. The developer and others that are corresponding or swarming inside a particular issue may prefer to see the last comment at the bottom of the commentary trail so that it can be referred to visually while composing a reply or update to the comment immediately preceding the new comment. The only way to do this elegantly is to have the newest comment at the bottom of the chain nearest the new comment entry.

A system wide setting will always alienate users of the other persona who wish to view the Jira issue's commentary relative to their specific use case. 

A profile based setting seems to be the best solution here.

I totally agree with the three previous comments!

Hi, or at least move the add comment button to the top so you dont have to scroll down all the way 

Hi please make the feature work as it was supposed to work as before. Worked fine but with recent changes gotten worthless for me and my teams and being a daily annoyance. Please investigate how your users actually use it  and how you can help them in doing it even better before you introduce new stuff that does the opposite.

+1 vote, this default comment sorting on 'newest first' is really unproductive. When I change the sorting it does not remember it for my user.  

The order is constantly changed on our systems, because each employee has a different preference.
Please create a possibility that each employee can set his own preference on the system via his profile.

I ran across this issue while checking the release notes. The workraround I want to suggest should not stop this issue from being implemented (looking at you, Atlassian - this is a 18 years old UX nightmare!) - but it did the trick for me. No further addons or apps required.

The main problem my users and I are having with this was discussed previously: scrolling up and down between the latest comment and the add comment window all the time. I think the easiest usability fix for this is simply changing the order of the sections listed on the page, moving the "Activity"-section to the very bottom of the page. (Thus, the "add comment"-button and the form will be directly above the "Activity"-section / comments.)

I added the following code to the announcement banner which worked fine for me (see https://confluence.atlassian.com/jirakb/how-to-hide-elements-in-jira-using-css-or-javascript-958774526.html for reference - tested in Jira 9.6.0) :

<style>
.aui-item.issue-main-column{
    display: flex;
    flex-direction: column;
}

#activitymodule{
   order: 100;
}

#issue-comment-add{
   padding-bottom: 0 !important;
}
</style> 

This suggestions should probably be posted in https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRASERVER-13327, but since the issue was closed as "won't fix" I decided this ticket might be the better place to suggest it.

Any additional improvements from fellow web-devs/admins welcome!

As an admin user with multiple Jira instances and changing sessions all day long, the value of this setting being limited to a user session has little to no value for me. I have to set it for every instance I visit and then when changing user accounts to do different functions, I have to do it again.

I like the "m" solution to not scroll, but often when replying, you also like to reference the words of the last person's comment - difficult to do when they are separated by pages worth of commentary.

Possible solutions:

• User profile choice to save the setting (like email preferences)
• or auto-save the setting to the user profile when a user reverses from the default newest first.

Thanks!

+1 vote, I find the new sorting order to be quite counter intuitive.

Now default is new first and its unusable, vote for this.

Another vote to this! 

Ahhh, thank you Kirstin Seidel-Gebert for the m key tip !

Or at least add a comment button to the top of the comments section. Though, you can add a comment by pressing the m key, Alex Cheah, to avoid scrolling.

This new default ordering  of newest first is inconvenient, as you must then scroll to the bottom to Add Comment and very possibly have to scroll up and down repeatedly or have another browser open on the newest comment, in order to respond to potentially multiple issues in the newest comment. You had it better before.

I support adding sorting preference as a user profile setting, please.

Please implement this!

Hi to all,

I had already complained 2 years ago and nothing no fix delivered.

I suggest to any global administrator having those problems to simply write public wiki page (a kind of proposal) in which summarize the facts about the ordering of comments, mention arguments why to switch back on default and provide alternatives for people who loves reverse ordering.  Announce this (banner, email, chat), to users/project admins/stakeholders of JIRA,  ask them to provide valuable feedback, give deadline, finally switch back to defaults. You might try voting as well.

Regarding arguments... I have used those ...

adherence to Atlassian (vendor) defaults

comments as chronology .... or texts is usually better to read from top to bottom

comments reading compatibility ... Jira, Confluence, Slack keeps those top down. Having one tool in one direction and other in reverse creates confusion for users.

most of Atlassian customers using top down..... (i.e. this Atlassian jira) .... so your users might not have a problem to join different company with standard Jira setup.

My situation is similar to comments above, my organization made a company-wide change to the ordering of comments.  I can change it manually, but it reverts and also doesn't handle new tickets.  So I'm always getting confused about where the new comments are.  Please add this as a user profile setting.

Our organization made a company-wide change to the ordering of comments that they say they cannot revert due to an integration with Jira Cloud.

I find it is easiest to scroll to the bottom of a Jira ticket to see the latest comment. Searching for the latest comment in the middle of the page requires extra hunting, and is totally messing with my brain after years of most-recent-at-the-bottom.

I can change it locally for myself, but then the setting spontaneously reverts after a day or a few hours. This is disorienting to say the least. I now constantly question whether what I've just glanced at is truly the latest comment or not. This has already caused a few communications breakdowns and hard feelings when a team member has updated a ticket, but at a glance their update doesn't appear to be the latest comment.

Please make the default setting for comment ordering user-customizable. Thank you.

ps. Why can't I type a space after the word 'Jira' when I type in this textfield? JiraJira JiraJira ? I put a space after each one! Frustrated.

Dear Atlassian,

You would expect ordering of comments to be a minor issue, but it's super annoying, for the reasons listed below.

To give a bit more context, I'm switching between Github and Jira, where Github (the most often used of the two) has e.g. comments on PRs sorted in ascending order. In order to have consistent workflow, I therefore prefer to have my Jira comments sorted ascending as well (similar to Github UI) - this is ofc just a personal preference.

The problem is:

• I haven't figured out when Jira actually remembers my sorting order. Sometimes it's sorted descending, after which I change to ascending. Is it remembered per browser session or something? At least this needs to be stored between sessions
• No matter if showing ascending or descending order, the "Add comment" is always at the bottom of list. Sorry, that is just bad UX to go to the end of list to click a button, which then adds an entry at top of list...
• Related to above, it's not clearly visible if list is sorted ascending or descending, so it takes a few seconds to actually figure out which order it is sorted. If "Add comment" button was at top of list, when sorted descending, would probably be more visible which order it's sorted.

Please fix these issues

Hello, please add this.

Thanks

Under the new view in the Cloud version, changing jira.issue.actions.order under Advanced Settings does not seem to work. Neither logging off/back on nor rebooting my machine has an effect. 

Can this be fixed please?

Oh my God, I can't believe Jira Server/DC doesn't allow users to select & remember their comment order setting in the user profile, or that I've never noticed it before! I know Atlassian is bad at addressing usability features, but this has to be the most egregious example I've come across in all my years of Atlassian involvement. I didn't realize the ordering couldn't be changed "permanently" per-user because I've always used the default!

This is one of the most basic features of a tool like Jira, and also probably one of most important features with regards to personal preference. People either really like it one way or the other, and it's probably a somewhat even split.

I can't believe it would be any more than a simple fix, and would undoubtedly result in large customer satisfaction. The fact that it has not been implemented in 15+ years is a testament to what Atlassian thinks of usability and attention to detail (i.e. individual users). Given the announced EOL of server (and assuming a similar fate for DC eventually), I'm sure it will never be fixed.

This is a REALLY bad look, Atlassian.