Text Field (read only) - will not display on a JIRA issue, why not?

[Jon Frampton]

@Nic Brough [Adaptavist] Dude - you are the man!  Thank You so much.  That was it.  How in the heck does the JIRA Toolkit get uninstalled...  Wow!  Great service provided by you today.

All - see response from Nic below in the comments.  Essentially the functionality I was looking for is contained within the JIRA Toolkit and for some reason our ToolKit had been removed.  Anyhow - all is well, all is well!

I am dealing with two issues here, both related to the custom field "Text Field (read only)"

• I have used this custom field in the past within JIRA 
• I know how to configure it
• Running JIRA version: 6.3.9
• Running JAVA version: 1.8.0_11
• Application Server Container: Apache Tomcat/7.0.55
• Database: MySQL - 5.5.28-0ubuntu0.12.04.2

1. I created a new instance of the field, configured it and added it to a tab within JIRA and it will not display.
   1. Using the "Where is my field" Tool I receive conflicting results
      1. On the Edit Screen I receive the "everything is good" report - all green (see below)
      2. On the Default Screen I receive: (See below)
         1. Status: "The 'Component - Impact - Instructions' is not present on the form you are viewing"  
         2. Field Value: "The field 'Component - Impact - Instructions' does not have value for issue (issue number here) and will not be displayed on the view issue page. Set value for that field so that it shows up."
   2. As mentioned above, I know how to configure the field, so that's not the problem. (see below)
      1. Furthermore, by comparing the two instances of the Where is my Field Tool I am left to conclude that I have most likely identified a Bug.  
      2. If this isn't a Bug, I am confused as to why the Tool believes that I am good to go in one analysis but not in another.  Can anyone explain why this may be happening? 
2. I have used this field in the past.  While I was troubleshooting the issue I realized that every instance of the "Text Field (read only)" has been removed / "hidden" from JIRA.  This is crazy!

I appreciate any assistance that can be provided.

Regards,

Jon F

• P.S. about four months ago I enabled the WikiRenderer feature for the first time. (which is very cool, but may not be related to this at all)
  • I know that I probably shouldn't taint the reporting of this issue with that information, but in case anyone else has identified a connection or in the future does experience this issue and at that time it is a known negative-interdependence between them, you're welcome! 

1.a.i

Edit Screen-Where is my Field..JPG

1.a.ii

Default Screen-Where is my Field..JPG

1.b

Edit Custom Field.JPG

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

What data did you put in the field and how?  (As you can only do it with code...)

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Correct. It says it on the help screen - a custom read-only text field *must* be populated by code, it's the only way to get data into it. There is no bug here, the message you're getting from the "where is my field" is correct - The field 'Component - Impact - Instructions' does not have value for issue (issue number here) and will not be displayed on the view issue page. Set value for that field so that it shows up. What I *suspect* you might have done is mixed up the (built in) "read only text field" with the (Jira Toolkit provided) "message text", where you set a value in the default and it splats it out on to the screen?

[Jon Frampton]

You are correct! I didn't even notice that limitation when I created it. It was the only read only field option and I "assumed" it was the one I remember. It appears that they have removed that functionality from JIRA. Why the heck would they do that. Thank you for your time, much appreciated!

[Jon Frampton]

See screen shot 1.b I am confused, are you saying that the only way you can input data that is displayed as read only is via Code? When I used this in the past I was able to configure it just like I did in 1.b. While that is an interesting point, before I go down that path, why the conflicting "Where is my Field" analysis? One would think that we should solve that issue first before moving on to the how the field gets populated.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

You might be just missing the "message field" type - have you got the Jira Toolkit installed in the current JIRA?

[Jon Frampton]

I installed the JIRA Toolkit and the custom field that I was looking for appeared and I used it and all is now well. Thank you for your attention to detail on this issue. regards...