Below are some important notes on upgrading to Confluence 6.1. For details of the new features and improvements in this release, see the Confluence 6.1 Release Notes.

Upgrade notes

Updating configuration files after upgrading

The contents of configuration files, such as server.xml, setenv.bat / setenv.sh and confluenceinit.properties change from time to time. 

When upgrading, we recommend manually reapplying any additions to these files (such as proxy configuration, datasource, JVM parameters etc) rather than simply overwriting the file with the file from your previous installation, otherwise you will miss out on any improvements we have made.

Get ready for collaborative editing

Collaborative editing will change the way your users work, in a great way! To help get your users ready for the change, send them our guide to Collaborative editing which will help them get the most out of this feature. 

Upgrading from Confluence 5.x?

Collaborative editing is made possible by the magic of Synchrony. When you install Confluence Server, Synchrony will be configured to run as a separate process on your server.

If you're upgrading from Confluence 5.x, there are a few requirements you need to be aware of:

• Memory and CPU: You may need to give your server more resources than for previous Confluence releases. When you install Confluence, Synchrony (which is required for collaborative editing), will be configured to run as a separate process on your server. The default maximum heap size for Synchrony is 1 GB (on top of Confluence's requirements). 
• WebSockets: Collaborative editing works best with WebSockets. Your firewall / proxy should allow WebSocket connections. 
• SSL termination: SSL should be terminated at your load balancer, proxy server, or gateway as Synchrony does not support direct HTTPS connections. 
• Database drivers: You must use a supported database driver. Collaborative editing will fail with an error if you're using an unsupported or custom JDBC driver (or driverClassName in the case of a JNDI datasource connection). See Database JDBC Drivers for the list of drivers we support.
• Database connection pool: your database must allow enough connections to support both Confluence and Synchrony (which defaults to a maximum pool size of 15). 

For Data Center, we give you full control by allowing you to set Synchrony up yourself. This gives you the flexibility to deploy Synchrony on the same nodes as Confluence, or in its own cluster with as many nodes as you need. See Installing Confluence Data Center to find out how to set up your Synchrony cluster. 

Upgrading from Confluence 6.0?

If you're currently using collaborative editing in Confluence 6.0, you're good to go!  No additional changes are required to your current setup when you upgrade to Confluence 6.1.

If you upgraded to Confluence 6.0 but had to turn collaborative editing off, we've made some changes that should enable you to turn it on successfully. Here's some tips to help you undo any changes you may have made while troubleshooting 6.0:

• Don't pass the synchrony.proxy.enabled system property to Confluence. This is no longer required, as Confluence 6.1 will intelligently determine whether to use the internal proxy. 
• Remove any /synchrony-proxy directives or location blocks from your reverse proxy configuration. Leave only the config for Confluence (if you plan to connect direct to Synchrony you can leave the /synchrony block).
• Make sure SSL is terminated at your reverse proxy. Synchrony does not support direct HTTPS connections. 

Running Synchrony standalone for Confluence Data Center?

We've reduced the number of properties you need to pass when starting Synchrony standalone for Confluence Data Center. The essentials remain the same, but you no longer need to pass so many properties whose values do not matter.  You can find the updated command to start Synchrony at Installing Confluence Data Center.  

Check collaborative editing is working after install / upgrade

After installing / upgrading Confluence you should:

• Head to Administration menu , then General Configuration. > Collaborative editing and check the Synchrony status is running. 
• Edit any page to check that your browser can connect to Synchrony. If you use a reverse proxy, make sure you're accessing Confluence via the proxy when you do this, and not directly. 

See Troubleshooting Collaborative Editing for suggested next steps if Synchrony is not running or you see an error in the editor.

Remember me requirements for SAML single sign-on

Confluence Data Center has a 'remember me' function to enable users to move seamlessly between nodes. Turning Remember user logins off in the SAML Authentication screen can override this Confluence behaviour and lead to users needing to log in again each time they move to another node. We recommend keeping Remember user logins enabled when you set up SAML single sign-on. 

New base URL check

We've implemented a new check to notify administrators when Confluence's base URL does not match the URL they are using to access Confluence. Not setting your base URL correctly can lead to unexpected behaviour in parts of Confluence.

For more information see the following Knowledge Base article: 'Your URL doesn't match warning' displayed in Confluence 6.1 or later 

Changes to the Page Index macro (6.1.4 and later)

The Page Index macro can be quite memory hungry in large spaces.  To prevent it causing out of memory errors in your site, we no longer show page excerpts when there are more than 200 pages in the space, and don't list any pages if there are more than 5000 in the space. This limit can be increased or decreased using a system property. 

Infrastructure changes

Minimum hardware recommandations

Previously we recommended a minimum of 2 cores for small instances, but we have found that Confluence 6 runs quite slowly with only 2 cores.  We now recommend a minimum of 4 cores, regardless of the size of your instance. 

For developers

There were a few library upgrades in this release which may have an impact on add-ons. 

Head to Preparing for Confluence 6.1 to find out more about the changes.

End of support announcements

There are no changes to our supported platforms in Confluence 6.1. 

Known issues

• If you use Apache to limit who can access the admin console, you should update your configuration. See Using Apache to limit access to the Confluence administration interface for our suggested configuration.
• There is a known issue installing Confluence 6.1.0 on Linux using the installer. See  CONF-51937 - Getting issue details... STATUS  for more information and a workaround.  This was resolved in Confluence 6.1.1. 
• There is a known issue where the "hibernate dialect" property was being incorrectly retained after upgrade. Customers who have been using Confluence since version 2.4 or earlier (legends!) should check the hibernate dialect in their <confluence-home>/confluence.cfg.xml file before upgrading to Confluence 6.0 to avoid this error:  Upgrading fails with ERROR The size (16777215) given to the column 'event' exceeds the maximum allowed for any data type (8000) in Confluence.  See  CONFSERVER-52103 - Getting issue details... STATUS . 
• Confluence Collaborative Editing does not work with SSL and Apache 2.4.9 or earlier.
• There is a known issue when upgrading Confluence with an Oracle database. Oracle users should upgrade their driver to 12.2.0.x before upgrading to Confluence 6.1 or later. See Upgrade to version 6.1.x Failed With Error "ORA-01000: maximum open cursors exceeded" for more information. 

Upgrade procedure

Note: Upgrade to a test environment first. Test your upgrades in your test environment before rolling them into production.

If you're already running a version of Confluence, please follow these instructions to upgrade to the latest version:

1. Go to  > General Configuration > Support Tools > Health Check to check your license validity, application server, database setup and more.
2. Before you upgrade, we strongly recommend that you back up your installation directory, home directory and database.
3. If your version of Confluence is earlier than 6.0, read the release notes and upgrade guides for all releases between your version and the latest version.
4. Download the latest version of Confluence.
5. Follow the instructions in the Upgrade Guide.

Checking for known issues and troubleshooting the Confluence upgrade

After you have completed the steps required to upgrade your Confluence installation, check all the items on the Confluence post-upgrade checklist to ensure that everything works as expected. If something is not working correctly, please check for known Confluence issues and try troubleshooting your upgrade as described below:

• Check for known issues. Sometimes we find out about a problem with the latest version of Confluence after we have released the software. In such cases we publish information about the known issues in the Confluence Knowledge Base.
• Check for answers from the community. Other users may have encountered the same issue. You can check for answers from the community at Atlassian Community.
• Did you encounter a problem during the Confluence upgrade? Please refer to the guide to troubleshooting upgrades in the Confluence Knowledge Base.

• If you encounter a problem during the upgrade and can't solve it, please create a support ticket and one of our support engineers will help you.