Why am I am getting the message, The database specified is not empty. Please specify an empty database for your installation.

[Mustafa Shah]

() I am getting this message when I tried to test the external Oracle Database connection when I downloaded JIRA and started to install the application. I tried to test the database connection but it was giving me this message. Can anyone tell me why this error message is popping up? Please advise.

[Jobin Kuruvilla [Adaptavist] · Accepted solution]

Do you have prior data in the DB? As the error message indicates, connect to an empty database.

[Mustafa Shah]

Yes I have prior data in the database but I recently another Install of JIRA 4.4.4 on another server and I successfully tested the database connection and it worked. Why would it give me a problem now?

[Renjith Pillai]

Did you perform and upgrade or didnt you perform a clean install at that time? For new installation it expects that the database is empty.

[Johannes Rudolf]

So I assume we should not have such problems with JIRA 5.7.5. But we do have. Initially we were using a cloned database (as we like to test a newer version of JIRA on a test system before permorming an upgrade) in order to switch from embedded database to Oracle database. Then we tried the JIRA configuration tool. Worse. Then again with the wizard and an emptied database strongly according to the documentation. Conclusion: what is the definition on an empty database?

[Danilo Conrad]

This error might be caused by the bug below which was fixed on JIRA 5.2.5:

• https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRA-25210

The error is only displayed using the JIRA Setup Wizard, and the workaround for those using a version prior to the fix is to manually edit the dbconfig.xml file or to run the JIRA Configuration Tool to configure the DB. This workaround is also detailed on the bug above.

[Gang Liang]

I created a brand new user and granted it with the 4 user rights mentioned in the Jira doc. Also I created a seperated new tablespace and made it the default for the new user. Then I connected the DB with this new user and was able to bypass the complaint about the "DB not empty". However, I still have problem with AD ldap user login if my Jira 5.2.5 (also 5.2.1) is connected to Oracle 11g DB.

Lando from AI.

[Gang Liang]

I tried Jira 5.2.5 32bit Windows installer on 32bit Windows 2008 with IE9 and hit the same problem when trying to connect to an external Oracle 11g fresh created new DB instance. I did have other DB instances running on the same Oracle host. Maybe Jira is not happy with other DB instance running side by side with its DB?! :-)