Upgrade from 2.2.7 directly to current version and then fix errors manually

[Petra Liverani]

Is it possible to upgrade from version 2.2.7 to the current version without the intermediate upgrades and simply fix what hasn't upgraded properly manually?

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist- · Accepted solution]

Technically, mathematically, yes, although it's going to take you decades to do the fixes.  A slightly better approach might be to take the database and run it through all the changes needed by running the SQL, but that's not going to be a lot quicker.  You could probably get it down to a few years by reading every line of "upgrade" code in the versions of Confluence you'd need to jump through.  In every method if you miss anything at all, you've got a broken system.

Out of curiosity, why?  Why would you want to try a direct jump?

[Petra Liverani]

Thanks, Nic. Because the team responsible for the upgrade think it will be a lot of work to go through all the various upgrades they need to do - ensuring they have the right version of Java, operating system, etc for each upgrade.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Ah, ok.  If they doubt the answer, then tell them that they will need to read all the upgrade code in each version and perform each task manually.  I'm pretty sure that they will quickly see that stepped upgrades is a lot safer and quicker.

[Petra Liverani]

Thanks, again. Nic. Yes, but they do the upgrade - I do the fixes, so less bother for them if it's up to me to do the fixes. I guess we could always try it and if it's horrendous, just do it the stepped way.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

It's not a case of "fixes", you're talking about having to restructure a database and its content manually.

[Petra Liverani]

Thanks, Nic.

[Ross Lindell _Information Officer Pte Ltd_]

I think when @Nic Brough [Adaptavist] says 'decades' he means, 'decades'.  I would declare it is not possible, and perhaps you could say to the other team - 'not supported' by Atlassian.  In other words, if you/they phone Atlassian up with questions, they will likely to go with their 'supported' route to upgrade:

Your Version	Recommended upgrade path to Confluence 5
2.7 or earlier	Upgrade to 2.7.4 then upgrade to 3.5.17, and follow paths below.
2.8 to 3.4	Upgrade to 3.5.17, and follow paths below.
3.5	Upgrade to 5.0.3 then upgrade to the latest version of Confluence 5.
4.0 to 4.3	Upgrade directly to the latest version of Confluence 5.
5.0 to 5.9	Upgrade directly to the latest version of Confluence 5.

Ref:

https://confluence.atlassian.com/doc/upgrading-confluence-4578.html

We've done this several times before, and it can be time consuming if you have lots of plugins/customizations.  I highly recommend using QA environment / virtualization / backups / snapshots along the way.