The AbstractJiraDownloader class throws an exception when jira returns a circular redirect due to the default behavior of apache httpclient. Basically, a circular redirect is a redirect to relative path like "../new path" and the default behavior of the httpclient is to refuse these redirects and throw an exception. Unfortunately, we are getting these redirects from our 3.11 version of jira. This behavior can be easily allowed by changing this: HttpClient client = new HttpClient(); HttpState state = new HttpState(); to this: HttpClient client = new HttpClient(); HttpClientParams clientParams = client.getParams(); clientParams.setBooleanParameter(HttpClientParams.ALLOW_CIRCULAR_REDIRECTS, true); HttpState state = new HttpState(); I have attached an updated java file. Thanks!