Upgrade to Confluence 4.x Fails with "Cannot drop the index 'ATTACHMENTDATA.attch_idver_idx'"
Platform Notice: Data Center - This article applies to Atlassian products on the Data Center platform.
Note that this knowledge base article was created for the Data Center version of the product. Data Center knowledge base articles for non-Data Center-specific features may also work for Server versions of the product, however they have not been tested. 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
Symptoms
- You are upgrading from Confluence 3.4.x directly to Confluence 4.x or above.
The following error appears in the UI indicating upgrade failure:
You cannot access Confluence at present. Look at the table below to identify the reasons. Upgrade failed. Please consult the system logs for details. You will need to fix these problems, restore your database and confluence home directory to the pre upgrade state. Then retry the upgrade.The following appears in the
atlassian-confluence.log:2012-03-22 10:46:33,471 INFO [main] [confluence.upgrade.ddl.HibernateDdlExecutor] executeDdlStatements Executing DDL: drop index attch_idver_idx on ATTACHMENTDATA 2012-03-22 10:46:33,596 ERROR [main] [atlassian.confluence.upgrade.UpgradeLauncherServletContextListener] contextInitialized Upgrade failed, application will not start: Upgrade task com.atlassian.confluence.upgrade.upgradetask.AddUniqueAttachmentIdConstraintToAttachmentDataUpgradeTask@a6cdf5 failed during the SCHEMA_UPGRADE phase due to: StatementCallback; bad SQL grammar [drop index attch_idver_idx on ATTACHMENTDATA]; nested exception is java.sql.SQLException: Cannot drop the index 'ATTACHMENTDATA.attch_idver_idx', because it does not exist or you do not have permission.
Cause
This error is typically caused when trying to upgrade from a pre-3.5.x version directly to 4.x. This bug has been filed here: CONFSERVER-27597 - Upgrading Confluence from 3.3.x and below to 4.x directly can fail with "Cannot drop the index 'ATTACHMENTDATA.attch_idver_idx'"
Workaround
Try upgrading to 3.5.17 first as an intermediate step prior to going to 4.x.
Resolution
The relevant bug (CONFSERVER-27597 - Upgrading Confluence from 3.3.x and below to 4.x directly can fail with "Cannot drop the index 'ATTACHMENTDATA.attch_idver_idx'") has been resolved in Confluence 4.3.7. You will no longer run into this issue when upgrading directly to this version or above.