Resolving broken TinyURLs after move to new server

Question

We had a server fail and therefore moved all of our Confluence content to a new server. Within our products, there are links to Confluence topics using the TinyURLs. Now that we're on a new server, all of them are broken. Thousands of them. Each product has different version release timelines and some are no longer having new releases, but we need our users to be able to access that content.

What is the easiest way to resolve all the broken links?

Bill Bailey · Answer

Yeah, I have never used the TinyURLs. The standard URLs are far more durable and even if the page title changed, Confluence will try to redirect you.

I did find this reference that shows how to generate the tiny URL, which makes me think that the pageIDs changed. If that is the case, you are hosed.

I fear that you are at the point of having to replace your URLs. And I think that surprisingly, the pretty titles are more durable that either the tiny URL or pageID.

For reference:

confluence-page-urls-contain-pageid-instead-of-the-page-title-278692715.html

Nadja Pollard · Answer

Different IP address is the only change, at least unless there's something in the background that IT did and I cannot see. The backup was corrupted and we lost some recently-added content. However, it was all we had to go by so re-added the lost content.

The TinyURLs for each Confluence page is what changed on the new server. For example, one link from within our product points to a topic that originally had the TinyURL ending:

/qARyAg

On the new server, that same topic has the TinyURL ending:

/ZoH9rQE

I'm looking into the Redirection for Confluence add-on to see if this helps resolve the issue.

Brant Schroeder · Answer

@Nadja Pollard The tinyURL points to a static URL.  If they are no longer working something in the URL structure changed when you restored your instance.  You should be able to see the end URL that the tinyURL is redirecting to.  What is different between the old URL and the New URL?