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How to delete dangling "mentioned by" lins from deleted work items?


Adam Wereszczynski (92811932) | asked Mar 18 '14, 3:48 a.m.
In my system, work item A is mentioning WI B.
When I delete WI A and open WI B, it still has "mentioned by WI A" link.
How to remove this dangling link?

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permanent link
Adam Wereszczynski (92811932) | answered Mar 18 '14, 3:53 a.m.
Normally those links should be deleted, but they are not due to a bug.
273166: Deleting a work item does not delete a mentions link that is made from it

There is a workaround mentioned in the WI to delete the links by importing modified CSV file:
- create a query that will collect all the work items with such dead links
- CSV export query with default column values
- edit CSV file
- add a column "Mentioned By"
- for each work item in CSV file, either add a blank value "" or keep valid links only
- save CSV file
- CSV import this file. Select to:
- update existing work items
- replace existing links with newly imported values
- import
--> dead links are removed

This workaround is not guaranteed to work, so please test it before trying on production data.

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