Confluence 5.x upgrade problems

[Steve Rhodes]

I'm having trouble with upgrading Confluence from 4.3.7 to 5.1.4 (also tried 5.2RC1) with the installer in Windows. When the installer gets to making a backup of the confluence home (D:\confluence-home) it wont create the backup and then gives me an error "com.install4j.runtime.beans.actions.files.CreateZipFileAction failed" with an option to ignore or quit. Ignoring this error looks like it upgrades but then when the browser launches it thinks its a new installation and prompts for a serial number. It does create the backup of my confluence folder to the root of D:\ without problem (d:\confluence). I could live without the backup, but the fact that it doesnt perform the upgrade properly and thinks its a new install means i'm going to do it manually like i used to do, pre v3.5.

I realise that this is very similar to: https://answers.atlassian.com/questions/20384/jira-upgrade-4-3-to-4-4-3-fails-on-backup-and-on-upgrade but this is Windows, its Confluence, and i have checked for running processes with ProcessExlporer, and run with full domain admin rights. Still no luck.

[William Zanchet [Atlassian] · Accepted solution]

Hi Steve,

Going first to Confluence 5.0.4 is the safest way to upgrade to the latest version. To download 5.0.4 you must go to the Download Archive, as described here: https://www.atlassian.com/software/confluence/download-archives

We don't recommend to use 5.2rc1 as a production, as it's not the final version. Last week we have launched Confluence 5.2.3 the final version, that you can download in our website. You might want to download the installer version of 5.2.3 there.
I hope this helps.
Cheers,

WZ

[Steve Rhodes]

The 5.2rc1 is currently on our test server. The idea was to put it there for testing and when a stable version is released, to put that into production. I've had so much trouble with the installer that I'm not going anywhere near it. I'll use the standalone zips. Even so, when we do go from 3.5 to 5.2 i'll go to 4.3.7, then 5.0.3 and then 5.2.3, probably all with standalone zips. The installer just does not work.

[Steve Rhodes]

Thanks for your reply. According to the Upgrade Confluence page i dont need to go to 5.0.x first (and besides, Confluence 5.0.4 doesnt exist). I did end up using the standalone though (5.2rc1). Theres no JRE in the zip so i had to install Java x64 and then replace the Tomcat with x64 version. After that I was able to make the settings changes (confluence-init.properties for D:\confluence-home) and install the windows service. That worked, and then I could modify the server.xml and web.xml for SSL/HTTPS redirection. The installer just does not work, and I forgot the second error that occurs upon install after the attempted CreateZip failure: http://postimg.org/image/eazdy1ua9/ I'm not sure whats happening at this point.

[William Zanchet [Atlassian]]

Hey Steve,

May I ask you, if you have tried using the standalone version instead of install? Being honest with you, I believe the standalone version is more reliable than the install folder. If you want to procedure, here are steps simplified:

First we need to go to Confluence 5.0.4 to be able to go to 5.1.5
Upgrade Process:

# Go to atlassian.com and download 5.0.4 standalone version.
# Extract the zip/tar.gz file of the latest version of Confluence on the place you choose. ( I highly suggest that you create a folder call: Confluence 5.0.4, and inside of this folder extract the install folder.
# Into the extracted folder, open the file confluence-init.properties, which is located at Confluence install directory\confluence\web-inf\classes and edit the line: confluence.home=/usr/local/confluence/home to point to the path where is your old home folder of your *Confluence 4.3.7*.
# Now start Confluence through your new installation folder, in this case Confluence 5.0.4.
# This process should do the upgrade.

This should do the trick.

Cheers,

WZ

[AndrewP]

In the process of upgrading from 5.8.10 to 5.9.7 - the Backup during the upgrade took more than 5 hours and at the end this error popped up. 

Is there any explanation for it and what is the solution?

Thanks