Why does Audit History show identical Old and New values in ServiceNow?

[Mohamed_009]

Hi Community,

I’m seeing a strange behavior in Audit History and would like to understand if this is expected.

While checking audit logs, I noticed that ServiceNow is creating an audit entry even when the field value does not actually change.

Example from our instance

Field: Short description

Audit history shows:

Field Old Value New Value

Short description

Email service is not working

Email service is not working

So the record shows an update in audit history, but the old and new values are exactly the same.

Why does ServiceNow create an audit record when the value remains unchanged?

Is there any recommended way to prevent these unnecessary audit entries?

Has anyone faced this scenario before or found the root cause?

Any insights or documentation references would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you 😊

[Ankur Bawiskar]

@Mohamed_009 

should not happen.

are you sure both values are same and there is no space at the start or end of that text?

💡 If my response helped, please mark it as correct ✅ and close the thread 🔒— this helps future readers find the solution faster! 🙏

[Mohamed_009]

@Ankur Bawiskar 

I have verified it. The content is the same and there are no spaces at the beginning or end of the text

[Ankur Bawiskar]

@Mohamed_009 

is it happening for all records or sometimes?