Why is a non-blocked story showing as blocked on the board?

[Carolyn White]

This story displays with a red bar on the board card indicating it is blocked, but Blocked? = No and Blocked Reason= None. I have looked at each sub-task and none of them are blocked. Why is there a red bar and how do I get rid of it?

[John Funk · Accepted solution]

Hi Carolyn - Can you show some screen shots of the board color rules? Also a screen shot of those fields used by the query for the color in the ticket. 

[Carolyn White]

[Carolyn White]

Given the color code and the fields on the work item, there should not be a red bar, correct? The ticket was blocked in October 2024 and unblocked March 2025 so it isn't a re-fresh issue either.

[John Funk]

I am wondering if it is the "None" value in the Blocked Reason field. Is this a dropdown? 

You might even add that to the query: 

"Blocked?" = Yes or ("Blocked Reason" is not EMPTY AND "Blocked Reason" != None)

Another way to check would be to remove the OR and all of that after it and see if it turns it off. If so then you know it is the Blocked Reason field. 

[Carolyn White]

"!=" is not supported for Blocked Reason so I tried other variations and nothing was accepted. I just deleted the whole thing about Blocked Reason, and it removed the red bar. Problem solved!

Thank you!

[Carolyn White]

And to complete this for future reference if anyone has a similar question.

"None" is the default to "Blocked?". When you click in the space, you can select Yes/No. To unblock the work item, either click No or click Yes again to return to the default None.

[John Funk]

Great! Glad you were able to get it solved!

[Karan Sachdev]

Hey @Carolyn White

These vertical lines are the card colours. You can configure them as described here: Configure card colors

Thanks!