Jira Cloud for Sheets Not Working or Refreshing: 9 Fixes

When Jira Cloud for Sheets stops working, the cause is almost always one of four things: a broken authorization between Google and Atlassian, a scheduled refresh that failed silently or reached its end date, a query too big for the add-on’s limits, or the December 2024 change to how the add-on pages through results. Find your symptom in the table below, then work through the matching fix.

Everything here comes from Atlassian’s documentation, its public bug tracker at jira.atlassian.com, and reports in the Atlassian Community. Bug statuses are as of October 30, 2026.

Find your symptom

What you see	Likely cause	Start with
Sidebar spins forever or stays blank	Google account permissions changed	Fix 1
“Hmmm … looks like we stumbled a bit (§GS-404)”	Add-on can’t find the target sheet	Fix 4
“No Jira auth”	Authorization missing, or the sheet owner left	Fix 1, then Fix 5
Manual refresh works, the schedule doesn’t	Silent authorization failure, or the schedule expired	Fix 2, then Fix 3
A =JIRA() cell shows the text “Refreshing”	Known bug in scheduled formula updates	Fix 2
=JIRA() errors right after enabling, or “Unknown function” in a copy	Known enable bug; copies don’t carry the setup	Fix 5
A formula that worked in 2024 now errors	The offset argument was removed	Fix 6
#ERROR! “Exceeded maximum execution time”	30-second limit on custom functions	Fix 7
“We refresh a maximum of 50 functions”	Refresh cap on =JIRA() cells	Fix 7
Description, worklogs or a custom field come back empty	Field handling since December 2024, duplicate field names, private profiles	Fix 8
Your filter isn’t in the Filters tab	Only starred filters are listed	Fix 8
The add-on is missing or won’t connect	Google Workspace or Atlassian admin settings	Fix 9

Fix 1: Reconnect your Atlassian account

Atlassian’s knowledge base article for a sidebar that “keeps loading forever” (updated September 25, 2025) says this usually follows a change in your Google account’s permissions. Its steps:

1. Open an incognito window.
2. Go to https://id.atlassian.com/manage-profile/apps.
3. Under connected apps, remove the Jira Cloud for Sheets app.
4. Back in your sheet, choose Extensions > Jira Cloud for Sheets and connect your account again.

If that doesn’t clear it, Atlassian’s documentation for the “No Jira auth” error escalates in this order: uninstall and reinstall the add-on, disconnect and reconnect your site, paste the query into a new Google Sheet, then make a copy of the sheet. As a last resort, revoke the app’s access in both your Atlassian account settings and your Google account’s third-party access page, remove the add-on, and authorize it from scratch.

One catch: the Disconnect site button removes every connected Jira site at once, so note your sites before you use it.

Fix 2: Re-authenticate the schedule

This is the most common report in recent Community threads. The schedule stops, manual refresh still works, and nothing tells you.

Atlassian’s tracker describes it in API-784, opened August 1, 2025 and still in “Needs Triage”. Scheduled updates stop, the reporter suspects the Google authorization token expires or loses scope, and “no errors or logs are generated.” The documented workaround is to select Edit on the schedule tab of the sidebar to re-authenticate.

Two related bugs:

• API-802 (November 2025): a scheduled =JIRA() formula is replaced by the text “Refreshing”. Workaround: re-authenticate, then run the update manually.
• API-563 (open since September 2022, 38 votes, “Gathering Impact”): “The scheduled update might simply not run at all.” Workaround: run the import manually.

After re-authenticating, note the time of the next scheduled run and check the sheet afterward. Don’t assume it’s fixed until you’ve seen one scheduled run land.

Fix 3: Check whether the schedule ended

In early 2020, Atlassian’s integrations team announced that auto-refreshes could run for up to 12 months, up from three. The sidebar’s schedule tab shows when the next update will run and when the query last ran; hover over the labels for exact timestamps.

If there’s no next run, the schedule has ended. Recreate it, and put a reminder in your calendar a few days before the new end date.

Copies need the same attention. Users report that copying a spreadsheet loses its saved queries and schedules, so a “fresh copy” of last quarter’s report won’t refresh until you set it up again.

Fix 4: Recreate the sheet for GS-404

The GS-404 message is tracked as API-451. It was opened in August 2021, has 33 votes, and was still in “Needs Triage” when last updated in July 2026. Atlassian attributes it to the add-on not finding the target sheet. The workaround is to recreate the sheet.

1. Add a new tab, or create a new spreadsheet.
2. Run the same import there.
3. Point your summary formulas at the new tab, or copy the values across.

For other “stumbled a bit” errors, Atlassian’s doc suggests checking the log for authentication failures, retrying with 1,000 to 2,000 rows per import, disconnecting and reconnecting the site, and reinstalling the add-on.

Fix 5: Get =JIRA() working again

• Right after enabling. Atlassian lists a known bug: if the function still errors, clear the cell, press Enter, and type the query again. You should only need to do this once.
• In a copied spreadsheet. The owner has to enable the function again in Extensions > Jira Cloud for Sheets > Open > Settings. Without that, copies can show “Unknown function: ‘JIRA’” (API-669).
• After the owner leaves. =JIRA() runs every query through the document owner’s Jira account. If that account is deactivated, the formulas fail with “No Jira auth” (API-712). Transfer ownership of shared report sheets before someone leaves, then have the new owner enable the function and authorize.

Fix 6: Update four-argument formulas

On December 16, 2024, Atlassian removed the offset argument from the function. The syntax changed from JIRA(jql, columns, offset, limit) to JIRA(jql, columns, limit).

Before:

=JIRA("project = ABC ORDER BY key", "summary,status", 0, 1000)

After:

=JIRA("project = ABC ORDER BY key", "summary,status", 1000)

Atlassian’s support page still shows the four-argument form as of October 2026, so examples copied from it can fail. To get more rows than one formula can return, split the JQL into ranges, for example created < "2026-01-01" and created >= "2026-01-01", each in its own formula or tab.

Fix 7: Shrink queries that time out

Google stops any custom function that runs for more than 30 seconds and shows #ERROR!. After the December 2024 change, users reported that error on formulas returning more than about 1,000 rows. Separately, the add-on refreshes at most 50 functions at a time and skips the rest, with a message saying how many cells it didn’t refresh.

What helps, roughly in order of effort:

1. Move big tables from =JIRA() to the sidebar import. It doesn’t run as a custom function, so the 30-second limit doesn’t apply to it.
2. Narrow the JQL, for example with updated >= -90d or statusCategory != Done.
3. Ask for fewer columns.
4. Replace dozens of small =JIRA() cells with one table, and look values up from it with XLOOKUP.

Fix 8: Bring back missing fields and rows

• Description, acceptance criteria, worklogs, status transition fields. These were reported missing after the December 2024 update. An Atlassian staff member replied on January 16, 2025 that the problems “have now been resolved”, but users reported new breakage in late January and March 2025. Re-add the field in the import’s column list and run it again. If it’s still blank, the add-on can’t deliver that field for your site, and you’ll need a CSV export or another method. For worklogs, our guide to exporting Jira worklogs to Google Sheets covers the alternatives.
• A custom field column stays empty. If two custom fields share a name, the add-on may not populate either one (API-299, 65 votes). Ask a Jira admin whether a duplicate exists.
• Blank assignee or reporter. Users with private profiles come through blank. That’s documented behavior.
• Your filter isn’t listed. The Filters tab only shows starred filters. Star it in Jira, then reopen the sidebar. A 2026 bug report (JRACLOUD-98195) describes the add-on’s filter list lagging behind changes made in Jira, so give it time.
• Fewer rows than Jira shows. The add-on stops at 10,000 work items per query, and results reflect the connected account’s permissions, which may differ from a colleague’s.

Fix 9: Check admin settings

• Google Workspace. Atlassian’s documentation notes that your Workspace admin must allow Google Sheets add-ons for users.
• Atlassian. Organization admins can block apps that users connect themselves. If the connection screen refuses, ask your Atlassian admin.
• Rate limits. Users reported a wave of rate-limit errors starting December 16, 2024. If several sheets refresh at the same hour, spread the schedules out and remove imports nobody reads.

Make failures visible

The add-on doesn’t alert anyone when a refresh fails, so build a check into the sheet.

If your import includes Jira’s Updated field as a date column, put =MAX(Jira!F2:F) (adjust the tab and column) in a cell labeled “Newest change in this data”. On an active project, a value more than a day old means the import is stale. Add conditional formatting to turn it red.

To get an email instead, add this to Extensions > Apps Script and give it a daily time-driven trigger. It reads the cell above (here Summary!B1):

function alertIfStale() {
  const cell = SpreadsheetApp.getActive().getRange('Summary!B1').getValue();
  const newest = cell instanceof Date ? cell.getTime() : 0;
  const hours = (Date.now() - newest) / 36e5;
  if (hours > 26) {
    MailApp.sendEmail(Session.getEffectiveUser().getEmail(),
      'Jira sheet looks stale',
      'The newest Jira change in the sheet is ' + Math.round(hours) +
      ' hours old. Check the Jira Cloud for Sheets schedule.');
  }
}

If the cell isn’t a date, the script treats the data as stale and emails you. That’s the safe direction to fail.

When to stop fixing it

Some context helps you decide how much to invest. Atlassian announced the add-on’s retirement on August 15, 2022, citing low usage, and reversed the decision four days later. Its Marketplace listing hasn’t been updated since December 16, 2024. The scheduling bugs above, API-563 and API-784, are still unresolved.

If a weekly report or an SLA dashboard depends on the sheet, keep a fallback you can switch to in an afternoon:

• A CSV export with the same columns, which you can paste into the raw tab. The steps are in our guide to exporting Jira to Google Sheets.
• A connector or script with its own schedule. We compare the options in Jira Cloud for Sheets alternatives.

Rowduet (in development) is being built around this failure mode: scheduled refresh that emails you when a run fails, so a stale sheet never reaches a meeting unnoticed. It isn’t available yet; early access is open if you’d like to try it when it is.