In cases when JIRA's performance deteriorates or if the system becomes unstable or unresponsive, it is important to achieve two goals:
- Bring system back to normal in the shortest amount of time.
- Collect information that would help analyze the problem and make sure it does not appear again.
The second goal is strategically very important, however, it might get overlooked in a rush to make things work "now". For example, JIRA administrator may be inclined to restart a stuck JIRA instance quickly in order for it to get back to working state as fast as possible. But if thread dumps are not collected, the developers will never know where JIRA was stuck, so the same problem may happen again.
The first goal is of course also very important. Sometimes JIRA administrator manages to restore system functioning, sometimes help from Atlassian and Tempo support teams is needed. Support engineers and developers would typically take into account all information they have, analyze it and try to pinpoint the source of the problem. Often additional information is required from the JIRA administrator, and sending requests and replies back and forth takes precious time.
This article is intended to provide JIRA administrators with advice about how to collect maximum information about a performance or stability problem, when that problem happens. The list is not intended to be complete, additional information may still be needed, however, providing all listed information gives a good chance that a support engineer will be able to identify a problem and provide advice sooner.