"Hidden" tickets suddenly appear

RT Users
1

RT 4.2.13 backed by PostgreSQL, though I feel like we’ve been
experiencing the following for many versions.

I’ve been suspect for quite some time, but thought maybe I was losing my
mind instead. I’ve confirmed finally that I am not losing my mind re: RT
in this specific case. We are definitely seeing the following situation.

I’m curious if anyone has thoughts as to where to start debugging the
root cause.

I use a simple saved search as my view into RT at work. Others using
this queue also use a similar one. The query is:

Queue = 'atcc-help'
AND
   (
      Status = 'new'
      OR Status = 'open'
      OR Status = 'stalled'
   )
AND (
       Owner = 'Nobody'
       OR Owner = 'jblaine@our.org'
    )

The display settings for the search have “Rows: Unlimited”

It results in a daily list of 70-120 tickets.

We are seeing tickets appear in this list, where they have never
appeared in the list before, after some period of being in the queue. In
most cases, the mystery ticket has a “Created” date of more than a few
weeks ago. The most recent case was 5 months. That is, a ticket with
"Created" of around 5 months ago, and in “new” status, showed up in the
results of the search above where it never had shown up before.

As you can imagine, this is terrible for customer service. Luckily it
seems pretty rare. I would estimate that we see this happen ~5 times per
year, and then have to start the very awkward conversation about how the
ticket “slipped through our cracks”.

Thoughts very welcome.

Jeff

2

Hi Jeff,

If you examine the ticket history of the problem ticket it should tell
you what happened
for it to be set back to the “new” status.

Is it being reopened by a reply to a email from the pervious ticket
corespondance perhaps??

Best Regards

MartinOn 2016-10-25 16:00, Jeff Blaine wrote:

RT 4.2.13 backed by PostgreSQL, though I feel like we’ve been
experiencing the following for many versions.

I’ve been suspect for quite some time, but thought maybe I was losing
my
mind instead. I’ve confirmed finally that I am not losing my mind re:
RT
in this specific case. We are definitely seeing the following
situation.

I’m curious if anyone has thoughts as to where to start debugging the
root cause.

I use a simple saved search as my view into RT at work. Others using
this queue also use a similar one. The query is:

Queue = 'atcc-help'
AND
   (
      Status = 'new'
      OR Status = 'open'
      OR Status = 'stalled'
   )
AND (
       Owner = 'Nobody'
       OR Owner = 'jblaine@our.org'
    )

The display settings for the search have “Rows: Unlimited”

It results in a daily list of 70-120 tickets.

We are seeing tickets appear in this list, where they have never
appeared in the list before, after some period of being in the queue.
In
most cases, the mystery ticket has a “Created” date of more than a few
weeks ago. The most recent case was 5 months. That is, a ticket with
“Created” of around 5 months ago, and in “new” status, showed up in the
results of the search above where it never had shown up before.

As you can imagine, this is terrible for customer service. Luckily it
seems pretty rare. I would estimate that we see this happen ~5 times
per
year, and then have to start the very awkward conversation about how
the
ticket “slipped through our cracks”.

Thoughts very welcome.

Jeff

RT 4.4 and RTIR training sessions, and a new workshop day!
https://bestpractical.com/training

  • Boston - October 24-26
  • Los Angeles - Q1 2017
3

Hi Jeff,

If you examine the ticket history of the problem ticket it should tell
you what happened
for it to be set back to the “new” status.

Is it being reopened by a reply to a email from the pervious ticket
corespondance perhaps??

Martin,

Right, that’s where I first looked. There are zero transactions past the
initial creation via email. Nothing has been done to the ticket.

Jeff> On 2016-10-25 16:00, Jeff Blaine wrote:

RT 4.2.13 backed by PostgreSQL, though I feel like we’ve been
experiencing the following for many versions.

I’ve been suspect for quite some time, but thought maybe I was losing my
mind instead. I’ve confirmed finally that I am not losing my mind re: RT
in this specific case. We are definitely seeing the following situation.

I’m curious if anyone has thoughts as to where to start debugging the
root cause.

I use a simple saved search as my view into RT at work. Others using
this queue also use a similar one. The query is:

Queue = 'atcc-help'
AND
   (
      Status = 'new'
      OR Status = 'open'
      OR Status = 'stalled'
   )
AND (
       Owner = 'Nobody'
       OR Owner = 'jblaine@our.org'
    )

The display settings for the search have “Rows: Unlimited”

It results in a daily list of 70-120 tickets.

We are seeing tickets appear in this list, where they have never
appeared in the list before, after some period of being in the queue. In
most cases, the mystery ticket has a “Created” date of more than a few
weeks ago. The most recent case was 5 months. That is, a ticket with
“Created” of around 5 months ago, and in “new” status, showed up in the
results of the search above where it never had shown up before.

As you can imagine, this is terrible for customer service. Luckily it
seems pretty rare. I would estimate that we see this happen ~5 times per
year, and then have to start the very awkward conversation about how the
ticket “slipped through our cracks”.

Thoughts very welcome.

Jeff

RT 4.4 and RTIR training sessions, and a new workshop day!
https://bestpractical.com/training

  • Boston - October 24-26
  • Los Angeles - Q1 2017

RT 4.4 and RTIR training sessions, and a new workshop day!
https://bestpractical.com/training

  • Boston - October 24-26
  • Los Angeles - Q1 2017

Jeff Blaine
kickflop.net

4

Hi Jeff,

If you examine the ticket history of the problem ticket it should tell
you what happened
for it to be set back to the “new” status.

Is it being reopened by a reply to a email from the pervious ticket
corespondance perhaps??

Martin,

Right, that’s where I first looked. There are zero transactions past the
initial creation via email. Nothing has been done to the ticket.

Jeff

Hi Jeff,

You need to find out what is preventing the ticket from showing up in
your query. One of your AND conditions may not be met so the ticket
does not show up. Are you saving your Email that is creating the missed
tickets? You could try submitting a similar Email to see if it has the
same visibility problem. Also, do you have any customizations? Sometimes
a change can have unusual ramifications down the line.

Good luck,
Ken

5

You need to find out what is preventing the ticket from showing up in
your query. One of your AND conditions may not be met so the ticket
does not show up. Are you saving your Email that is creating the missed
tickets? You could try submitting a similar Email to see if it has the
same visibility problem. Also, do you have any customizations? Sometimes
a change can have unusual ramifications down the line.

Another “hidden” ticket appeared last week (11/4) in the search results.
It is ~7 months old.

  • Ticket has zero transactions

  • Ticket is in ‘new’ status as expected. Never had a different
    state.

  • Ticket is owned by ‘Nobody in particular’ (aka account name
    ‘Nobody’) as expected for a ticket with no transactions. Never
    had a different owner.

  • Ticket is in ‘atcc-help’ queue. Never had a different queue.

  • All criteria above match the search query below fully:

    Queue = ‘atcc-help’
    AND
    (
    Status = ‘new’
    OR Status = ‘open’
    OR Status = ‘stalled’
    )
    AND (
    Owner = ‘Nobody’
    OR Owner = ‘jblaine@our.org’
    )

Yet it sat hidden for ~7 months, not showing in the search results,
and then popped into view Friday 11/4.

We do not have any homebrew customizations at all for this RT
instance.

We use RT::Extension::Nagios and RT::Extension:Assets.

I can’t really picture how we could reproduce this failure scenario.

Jeff Blaine
kickflop.net

6

You need to find out what is preventing the ticket from showing up in
your query. One of your AND conditions may not be met so the ticket
does not show up. Are you saving your Email that is creating the missed
tickets? You could try submitting a similar Email to see if it has the
same visibility problem. Also, do you have any customizations? Sometimes
a change can have unusual ramifications down the line.

Another “hidden” ticket appeared last week (11/4) in the search results.
It is ~7 months old.

  • Ticket has zero transactions

Rights could also cause this, assuming you’re not running as a
SuperUser. Every ticket would at least have a “Ticket created”
transaction, but if you’re not seeing it, it could be that some rights
are limiting your view of ticket history and possibly seeing the ticket
itself based on some criteria.

It would be worth looking at the ticket as a SuperUser just to make sure
you’re seeing all of the history.