'Saving changes is not permitted' error when you try to save a table in SQL Server
Platform notice: Server and Data Center only. This article only applies to Atlassian products on the Server and Data Center platforms.
Support for Server* products ended on February 15th 2024. If you are running a Server product, you can visit the Atlassian Server end of support announcement to review your migration options.
*Except Fisheye and Crucible
Problem
Some Confluence troubleshooting steps require you to make changes to a SQL Server database. Depending on your SQL Server configuration, you may get the following error when making structure/schema changes:
Saving changes is not permitted. The changes that you have made require the following tables to be dropped and re-created. You have either made changes to a table that can't be re-created or enabled the option Prevent saving changes that require the table to be re-created.
Cause
This warning that prevents the actions from completing is caused by the Prevent saving changes that require table re-creation option being triggered in SQL Server. This option lets SQL Server to prevent structure changes when a table needs to be recreated and is intended as a security feature. However, this also prevents planned changes from completing.
Resolution
The resolution is to uncheck the Prevent saving changes that require table re-creation option:
As with all recommendations made by Atlassian Support, please follow best practices for Change Management and test and validate these settings in a Test/Development and Staging environment prior to rolling any changes into a Production environment. This is to validate these changes and ensure that they will function will within your infrastructure prior to placing these changes in production.
- Open SQL Management Studio as an administrator
- Go to Tools, then options then "Designer"
- Uncheck the Prevent saving changes that require table re-creation
- Expand the database tables on the left object explorer of SQL Server and make the changes you plan to make
You may want to re-check the Prevent saving changes that require table re-creation in order to for the security feature to warn again