nav[aria-label="Primary Navigation"] { padding: 0; & ul { list-style: none; width: 100%; display: flex; flex-direction: row; justify-content: start; align-items: start; gap: 30px; padding: 0; & li { margin: 0; } & ul li { list-style: none; } } }

Urgent help needed - Confluence fails to start after failed backup import

Rogerio Richa

I have been running confluence 6.0.3 for years now and this morning I had to restore a backup from last Friday due to an accidental space deletion. When I restored the backup from the platform, I got an error saying: backup failed - failed to run script.

The problem is now I get

org.apache.velocity.exception.MethodInvocationException: Invocation of method 'isShowSignUp' in class com.atlassian.confluence.user.actions.LoginAction threw exception java.lang.NullPointerException: Application cannot be null at /login.vm[line 6, column 28]
at org.apache.velocity.runtime.parser.node.ASTMethod.handleInvocationException(ASTMethod.java:337)

caused by: java.lang.NullPointerException: Application cannot be null
at com.google.common.base.Preconditions.checkNotNull(Preconditions.java:226)

when I open the page. I cannot sign in anymore. All similar reports recommend changes to the database (e.g. https://confluence.atlassian.com/confkb/confluence-returns-system-error-due-to-invocation-of-method-isshowsignup-in-class-com-atlassian-confluence-user-actions-loginaction-threw-exception-java-lang-nullpointerexception-at-login-vm-693899125.html) but all these fields are empty on mine! It is as if my database had been wiped out.

Can someone please instruct me on how to restore my data? I have a 9GByte backup file which means all relevant data is in there.

Accepted answers

All comments

Rogerio Richa

I'm currently trying to reconstruct these tables in my DB using instructions from

https://confluence.atlassian.com/confkb/unable-to-log-in-to-confluence-715261580.html

and

https://confluence.atlassian.com/confkb/how-to-recreate-the-confluence-internal-user-directories-776657338.html

but so far no luck. I believe there are some conflicting directory/application IDs on these two documents so I would appreciate a hand here.

Shannon S

Hello Rogerio,

Thank you for reaching out! I'm happy to help you resolve this issue and get you back up and running.

Can you let me know how the backup was created that you are using? Is it a full XML backup of the site, or a database backup?
What type of database are you using for Confluence?

If you have a full site XML backup, could you attempt to create a brand-new Confluence installation with a clean database, and restore the XML backup to that once set up?

And because of the recent security advisory, we recommend that you upgrade now to one of the following versions:

6.14.2
6.13.3
6.6.12

Once you get Confluence back up and running, I would advise you proceed with that upgrade as soon as you can.

Regards,

Shannon

Rogerio Richa

Hi Shannon,

I'm on PostGres. I was running 6.0.3 and upgraded to the latest but I still have a snapshot of my server from right after the failed upgrade.

To answer your question: the backup was created using the automated backup tool (which runs daily with backups being sent to AWS S3). It is a large .zip file (9 GBytes). I am not sure if this is what you mean by full XML backup.

I did not backup the postgres database when I imported the backup.

And some progress on my problem - I have used those two links to re-create the necessary entries on my DB to allow me to sign in with admin/admin, but I can't see any of my spaces. It is as if I had lost all data. I have tried this on 6.0.3 and 6.15 with the same result.

I've tried re-indexing but no luck so far.

Rogerio Richa

I'm now taking a different approach - instead of recovering the server, I'll try to "fix" the backup file. I'm now testing https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONFSERVER-38089 on a fresh 6.15 install

Shannon S

Rogerio,

Thank you for letting me know about that. The 9GB size is quite large so it is probably the full site backup (and not a single space) which includes attachments.

Let me know how the new approach goes. Were you able to test the same backup on a new site installation earlier? That might be your 2nd option to try if you haven't yet.

Regards,

Shannon

Jennifer Ward

Hi Rogerio,

Can you provide the list of steps in the order you performed? I am trying to piece together from everything you have put here, but I want to ensure I am piecing it together properly. I have run into this same issue and am having no luck with the other 'fixes'- my results from cwd_app_directory_mapping are '0' (zero) as well.. Thanks!