6500 pages unmigrated content after release update - how to proceed?

[Stefan Baader]

We are preparing the update of our large wiki from 2.8. to 5.5

On the test system we have this hint on the unmigratedcontent.action pag:

Update content with legacy macro format:

Confluence has detected that there are 6.509 pages with macros that are not yet using the current storage format.

How to proceed now? How to find and clear all those pages? Is it recommended to continue updating with such a lot of unmigrated content?

[Dave Theodore [Coyote Creek Consulting]]

Oh boy. These are fun. :) First off, don't do anything in Prod until you can get this to work in Dev! You'll have a big mess on your hands if you don't get this figured out in Dev.

I've had the best success by upgrading to 4.0, sorting out the XHTML migration issues, and from there, go to the latest version. Unless you have a really good understanding of how the XHTML migration process works, you might want to get some help on this. Basically, the problem is that you have wiki markup on those 6500 pages that the migration tool can't migrate (and isn't nice enough to tell you exactly why.) There can be a variety of causes for this, but it generally has to do with a plugin that either isn't available on Confluence 4.0 and later or with a plugin that has some functionality that changes drastically with versions <4.0 or with User Macros that are written with wiki markup. If you can identify which plugin(s) are causing the issues, there may be a specific upgrade procedure for the plugin(s.) You'll need to rewrite User Macros, and there will be an error icon next to the ones that were not able to be upgraded. It could also be that you have broken wiki markup that was tolerated in 2.8 that is no longer tolerated in later versions. We've done a lot of these migrations over the years, so we should be able to help you get Confluence upgraded quickly if you decide you need some help with it.

[Stefan Baader]

Dave, thanks for your reply. Indeed we have several plugins which are no longer available in the new CONF 5.5 or which we don't want to purchase (like the new 8500 USD calendar plugin). The API changed (so a lot of user macros don't work any more) and some small mistakes in the legacy markup code (done by users) are no longer tolerated. Further we recognized that template form fields (like @var@) are not migrated (into $var). We are now struggling for weeks with those issues and will not be able to update our Confluence system in time. This is really a mess.
Maybe some help from an expert could be worthfull. The Atlassian support is investigating since several days and no solution until now. We had never so much trouble with Confluence when updating.

[Steven F Behnke]

You're unfortunately very far behind versioning-wise, and Atlassian essentially rebuilt large swaths of Confluence in the meantime. Expert help may be exactly what you need.

[Application Services]

I agree, engage with Atlassian to work with your situation! We use a number of Bob Swift and ServiceRocket macros so it complicated the move. We went from Confluence 3.5.17 to 5.0.3 to 5.6.6 in a one day migration that took 2 years of planning. Essentially, we dropped ALL Plugins between each migration then re-installed them, ran the re-migration process in 5.6.6 to convert the 5200+ pages that did not migrate earlier.

[Deleted user]

We just upgraded to Confluence 6.13 and saw a similar message, but in this version, there's the following message:

Update required

You have installed new plugins since your last content update. It is recommended to run the update so that content with macros from these plugins may now be migrated.

Note: Once an upgrade has commenced you will not be able to pause or undo the upgrade. An update can severely affect the performance of your instance, we recommend you conduct this update during a quiet time. Users editing a page as it is updated may receive notice of a conflicting edit.

There's a link to perform the update that's labelled, "Update Content" beneath that message. I'm hesitant to just click it and assume it will correct everything.

I was going to put in a Support ticket, but I try to post to the Forum first.