Roll back plans when updatign Confluence Plugins?

[Victor Prasad]

Hello,

Confluence needs regular updating of plugins.  To do this we have to through our change management process.  I do get asked about a back out plan.  For the most part Confluence plugins update with no issue.  But if one failed and did not return the original plugin version.  What do I do?  I can ask our server team to do a server and db back up, and restore if worse comes to work.

What does the community recommend?

Anyone have a catastrophe with plugins updating?

Thanks,

Mr. V

[Daniel Eads · Accepted solution]

Hi Victor,

We have needed to rollback an occasional malfunctioning plugin in the past while vendors fix issues related to our environment. You'd be surprised how many plugins seem to have Oracle-specific data storage issues.

First, keep detailed records of which version you're upgrading from so you know which version you need to roll back to. Here's a snippet from my update notes page (we update our plugins monthly):

           

Here are the steps for executing a rollback, in the event you ever need to do it:

1. Go to the plugin's marketplace listing, click on the Versions tab, and then click the See all __ versions link. This takes you to a page that looks like this (my favourite Confluence plugin as an example)
2. From your update notes, check which version you're coming from and need to roll back to. Find this version on the page, right click the Download link, and choose to copy the link address (or whatever the specific wording is in your browser)
   
3. In Confluence, Uninstall the current version of the offending plugin. That's right - completely uninstall it.
4. While you're still on the Manage Plugins page in Confluence, click the Upload addon button near the top right (above the list of installed plugins). Paste the URL of the version you need, and click the button to install.
   

Cheers,
Daniel

[Victor Prasad]

Hey Daniel!!

ScriptRunner did cause me an issue, but I think that has been fixed now.

Having to prepare a back up and restore is an issue because I have to engage another team, go through their request process and have them on standby when I update.  So far I have NEVER had to restore, but what if that day comes.....#paranoid

Thank you very much!