Confluence 6.5 Upgrade Issue Edited

[Brent Costanzo]

I was running 6.3.1 in a docker instance on my own personal network. I decided to fart around with 6.5 to see the changes, but made a big mistake. I set it up to run under the same folder that I was running the 6.3.1 instance in. Oops!

I did not go through with the installation since I caught it pretty quick when I saw the command I ran. However, now I get all kinds of errors when I try to run the 6.3.1 docker container that was working flawless up until that point.

Is there anyway to retrieve all the data or did I just lose my entire Confluence instance?

[Ann Worley]

Hey Brent! Sorry to hear of the mishap.

By default, Confluence automatically backs up your data daily at 2:00am, by performing a full site export. The zipped XML backup file is stored in the backups directory of your Confluence Home directory. (Note: The <confluence_home> directory is the path defined in the following file: <confluence_install>/confluence/WEB-INF/classes/confluence-init.properties)

So if you reinstall a clean Confluence 6.3.1 you can import one of those XML backups and get all your data back. Here's the doc on how to restore: Restoring a Site.
Thanks,
Ann

[Brent Costanzo]

Thanks for the response Ann!

I just checked the backups folder from a manual backup I just did, and unfortunately I do not see any files in here. Is the automatic backup feature something that needs to be manually turned on or is it something that should be turned on by default?

However, I must note one important fact about my last statement. I was using the docker image for Confluence 6.3.1, and may be looking in the wrong place. I'm pretty sure that I am looking in the right place as defined by Atlassian's instructions to link the volume in /data/<confluenceDirectory> or is it somewhere else? I see a backups folder in here, it's just empty though.

P.S. Sorry for the double post. Just wasn't sure why this one was originally marked as spam.

[Brent Costanzo]

Ann--

Upon a bit more inspection of a fresh Confluence install using Atlassian's official docker image, I see that automatic backups are disabled by default. This might be docker image specific, but it's worth noting for anyone else who might be troubleshooting a similar issue in the future.

Is the backup XML the only way to restore data or are there any other manual backup alternatives? I've searched through most of the documentation dealing with backups, but it seems to reference a backup XML of some sort. The rest of the Confluence home directory seems to be intact, just without a backup XML.

[Ann Worley]

I understand you did a manual backup and the backup was not in the expected folder so I am hopeful that somehow the automatic backups from before the upgrade are somewhere on your system.

Please check the Backup Path at Confluence Admin>Backup Administration:If the path on that page does not contain backups, and your database is partially upgraded, then the database needs to be restored to before the partial upgrade. Is it possible that you have database backups?