Migrating confluence to a new server fails

Question

Hi There,

We are migrating our confluence server to new hardware.

I followed to following steps:

* The old confluence database was copied to a new database server and is accessible via a new username/password combination
* On a fresh windows installation (windows server 2016) I installed a clean confluence.
This installation works when I access it via a browser.
* I renamed the confluence and application data/confluence folder as a backup
* All files of the old server have been copied onto the new server
* Updated confluence-init.properties with the new folder location
* Updated confluence.cfg with the new database location
* started up confluence

Confluence seems to be running (via task manager) but via the browser there is no result.

I did follow the steps described in:

https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/migrating-confluence-between-servers-184150.html

Hope you can help us bringing Confluence back to life.

If required I can provide the logfiles generated

Davin Studer · Accepted Answer

If you did a fresh install of the same version of Confluence you do not need to copy over C:\Program Files\Atlassian\Confluence. You just need to copy over C:\Program Files\Atlassian\Application Data from the old server. Also, copy over C:\Program Files\Atlassian\Confluence\conf\server.xml from the old server to the new one. After you copy over C:\Program Files\Atlassian\Application Data you will need to edit the db connection settings in C:\Program Files\Atlassian\Application Data\confluence.cfg.xml. Make sure that the un/pw that you use are a valid SQL login and that that login is a mapped user to the Confluence database.

Lawrence te Vruchte · Accepted Answer

All,

I've got an alternative, which worked for me. And I think it also can work for others.

I made a fresh new installation of confluence. And during the setup I placed back a backup. My system was/is configured that daily backups are created. So I got a recent backup. If you don't have automated backups within confluence enabled, then first create a backup in confluence before you start. This will provide you with a .zip file in application data/confluence/backup folder. During the setup process there is asked to copy this .zip file to the created restore directory. (sometimes this file is not seen directory, in that case click on the browse button to open a fileexplorer windows and close it. Now the page is refreshed and the backup file is visible)

In my case I created an extra database which was used for putting back this backup. This will insure you that the original database is not overwritten before all is restored. When restored correctly the original (old) database can be removed. This is the safe route.

When the system is up and running you need to place back all your plugins. Confluence doesn't add these based upon the backup, but luckily the references are included. Open the .zip files being backup-ed, and open the file \plugin-data\com.atlassian.activeobjects.confluence.spi\activeObjectsBackupRestoreProvider.pdata

Open this file in your texteditor (e.g. notepad++) and seek for the keyword:        plugins

This will provide you all plugins being once installed. Please be aware that this also includes system plugins which are installed already. So you need to filter some out, but it's a good start to make sure that you didn't forget one. Otherwise you could get strange render issues, because they are referred to plugins which don't exist yet. The other option is to remember which plugins you have installed the last couple of years, but this was no option for me.

good luck!!!