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 😊

[Tanushree Maiti]

Hi Mohamed_009

There could be several Causes (with Solutions) for your issue: 

• Scripting Updates without Changes: If a script runs gr.update() on a record, it will create an audit entry, even if no fields actually changed.
  • Solution: Use gr.setWorkflow(false); in business rules if auditing is not required, or add a changes() check to the condition if (current.field.changes()).
• Data Type/Format Misalignment: The data stored in the database differs slightly from the value on the form (e.g., a "Date" field storing more precision than displayed, or a Reference field storing a Sys ID vs a Display Value).
  • Solution: Check the field using "Show XML" to see the actual stored value versus the form value.