Org admin locked out of site admin – cannot install apps or access Products (Confluence Free)

Question

I am the organisation admin and creator of this Atlassian organisation.
I previously had access to another Jira site, and when I created our new Confluence
Free site I was not auto-assigned site admin.

Symptoms:
- I cannot see “Products” or “Apps” in admin.atlassian.com
- Marketplace app installs (e.g. Gliffy) silently fail
- https://bighams-data.atlassian.net/wiki/admin/permissions returns “We couldn’t find what you’re looking for”

There appears to be no active site admin on this site.
As I am on Confluence Free, I cannot open a support ticket.

Can an Atlassian staff member please assign my user as site admin for bighams-data.atlassian.net?

Jessica · Answer

Hi @Dan Pullen

Looking at our internal tools and checking the email address you used to raise this thread, we can see that you are listed as an Organization admin for the mentioned site.
Being a site-admin or not should not be a blocker, since being an Organization admin is a higher "role" that should allow you to manage your Organization settings and make changes in roles to make changes in the products.

That said, we wanted to confirm a few things:

* Are you unable to see anything when you access admin.atlassian.com with the same account used to raise the thread here?
Having in mind you are already listed as an Organization admin, you should be able to see your Organization's name and click on it to see more options.

* The URL link path "/wiki/admin/permissions" is not valid even on other sites as there is no configurations when accessing this URL, so it is expected you will get the message when trying to access it.

* If you are unable to access Confluence settings, it might be expected if you are not an app admin. More information on roles at What are the different types of admin roles? * Please follow the steps in Make someone an app admin to grant yourself an app admin role for the Confluence product, in case you are already able to access your Organization settings.
* Once you have app admin role for the product you want to manage the product settings, you should be able to access its settings.

If you cannot see anything at admin.atlassian.com (not even the Organization's name to click on it) even on a incognito window, please let us know. 
If this is for another email address account/site, let us know as well so we can continue in a support ticket. (please don't share any email addresses here or sensitive content, e can continue in a support ticket if necessary.)

Regards,
Jessica

Hari Krishna · Answer

Hi @Dan Pullen ,

This is a known edge case with Confluence Free sites. Being an Organization Admin does not automatically grant Site Admin permissions, and on Free plans there is no self-service way to promote yourself if no site admin exists.

Because Marketplace app installs and product access require Site Admin, what you’re seeing (missing Products/Apps, failed installs, permissions page not loading) is expected when the site has no active site admin.

Unfortunately, on the Free plan you cannot raise a standard support ticket yourself. The only way to resolve this is for an Atlassian staff member or Community Champion to escalate the issue internally so Atlassian Support can assign your user as Site Admin for the site.

In the meantime:

Do not share site URLs or email addresses publicly

Wait for an Atlassian staff response in this thread, or

Ask a Community Champion to formally escalate the case on your behalf

Once Atlassian assigns Site Admin access, Products, Apps, and Marketplace installs will work normally again.

Kris Klima _K15t_ · Answer

Hi @Dan Pullen

Free Confluence doesn't have a usual array of permissions options and as an org admin, you should be able to make yourself an admin.

(providing your login credentials are the same for the org as for Confluence)