I’m having trouble with my Jira Kanban board setup. I created a custom swimlane specifically for tracking bug issues during our development cycles, but it’s not working as expected.
The main problems I’m facing are:
The swimlane I configured doesn’t appear on the board at all
Bug tickets aren’t getting filtered into their designated lane when I apply label filters
Even with all project issues visible, the board shows everything mixed together instead of separating bugs into their own lane
My JQL filter for the bug lane is:
issuetype=Bug
This configuration worked perfectly in the past on the same project. I haven’t modified any board settings recently, so I’m not sure what changed. Has anyone encountered similar swimlane visibility issues?
Same thing happened to me last month. Turned out my board’s main filter was conflicting with the swimlane setup. First, check if your board’s base filter still includes Bug issue types - someone might’ve modified it to exclude bugs or added extra constraints. Your swimlane won’t show even with correct JQL if the main filter blocks it. Also make sure your swimlane’s set to “Queries” mode, not “Stories” mode in the board config. Don’t forget permissions - if you can’t view certain bug issues, the swimlane might look empty or not display at all. Quick test: temporarily change your board filter to just project = YOUR_PROJECT and see if the bug swimlane shows up.
Had this exact problem a few weeks ago - drove me nuts for hours. Here’s what fixed it for me: check your swimlane order in Board Settings > Swimlanes. Make sure your bug swimlane isn’t sitting below any “Everything Else” or catch-all lanes that’ll grab your bug issues first. Jira runs through swimlanes top to bottom, so if there’s a broader query above your bug-specific one, it’ll snag those tickets before they hit your bug lane. Also check that the swimlane’s actually enabled - they sometimes get disabled during board updates. Your JQL looks fine, so it’s probably the configuration order, not your query.
hey, have you tried checking if your swimlane query is actually included in the board filter? Jira can be tricky like that. maybe just recreating the swimlane could help too. switching between board views sometimes clears up those display issues.