Here are some important notes on upgrading to Confluence 6.13. For details of the new features and improvements in this release, see the Confluence 6.13 Release Notes. 

Upgrade notes

Confluence Server and Data Center 6.13 is a Long Term Support release
This means we'll provide bug fix releases until 6.13 reaches end of life, to address critical security, stability, data integrity, and performance issues. 

Ready to upgrade? Check out the Confluence 6.13 Long Term Support release Change Log for a roll-up of changes since 6.6. 

PostgreSQL driver upgrade

In 6.13.18 we upgraded the PostgreSQL driver bundled with Confluence from 42.2.6 to 42.2.16.

In 6.13.20 we upgraded the PostgreSQL driver bundled with Confluence from 42.2.16 to 42.2.18.

We don't expect there to be any impact from these driver upgrades. See the PostgreSQL JDBC driver changelog if you want more details.  

Changes to the Share a link blueprint

From 6.13.4, URLs must be added to Confluence's whitelist before they can be shared using the Share a link blueprint. This is to prevent people from accidentally or maliciously sharing links that may pose a security risk to your site.  

AdoptOpenJDK

In Confluence 6.13.0 and 6.13.1 we continue to bundle the Oracle JRE, but it's very straightforward to switch to AdoptOpenJDK if you prefer.  

From Confluence 6.13.2 we bundle the AdoptOpenJDK JRE by default.  You can choose to switch back to Oracle if you prefer. 

Head to Change the Java vendor or version Confluence uses for a step-by-step guide to changing the Java version for Confluence to use.

Font configuration issue

We have identified a font configuration issue that impacts Linux operating systems. You may need to install a font configuration package in order to install and run Confluence with AdoptOpenJDK.  See Confluence 6.13 or later fails with FontConfiguration error when installing on Linux OS. 

PDF export changes

We've improved the styling of our PDF exports. Some of these fixes have changed the behaviour of the PDF. Here are some of the significant changes:

• PDFs are now exported page by page. This means that each Confluence page will start on a new PDF page (and not be combined).
• Headings are no longer demoted, based on the page's level in the page hierarchy (for example, if an exported page was 2 levels deep, h1 headers were demoted to h3, h2 headers to h4 and so on). Headings now match the level set on the Confluence page. 
• Tables are no longer resized to fill the PDF page width.  They are now resized based on the amount of content in the table.
• Table columns are no longer equal width. Columns are resized based on the amount of content in the table. 

In most cases you can use CSS styling to replicate the Confluence 6.12 and earlier behaviour. See Customize Exports to PDF for more info. 

Infrastructure changes 

For developers

Head to Preparing for Confluence 6.13 to find out more about changes under the hood. 

End of support announcements

As previously announced, PostgreSQL 9.3 is no longer supported.

Confluence 7.0 is coming

It's been just over two years since we released Confluence 6.0, and the time has come for us to start sharing some of our plans for Confluence 7.0.

Platform releases like 7.0 are an opportunity to make bigger changes, including removing rarely used or under-performing features. While these changes can be disruptive in the short term, they provide us with essential opportunities to improve the user experience, performance, and stability of Confluence.

Your feedback during this process is really important to us, which is why we are sharing our plans with you now.

Head to Planned changes in Confluence 7.0 for details of features we're considering removing. Formal end of support announcements will be made closer to the release of Confluence 7.0.

Known issues

• Users can't edit files using the Atlassian Companion app in some browsers. See Can’t edit files in Confluence Server using Atlassian Companion app in Internet Explorer, Edge, Firefox, or Safari
  
• 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 where read-only mode attempts to write to <shared-home>/confluence.cfg.xml , but the file doesn't exist in the shared home directory. This problem affects sites that have been previously upgraded from Confluence 6.0 or earlier. See Could not save access.mode into the shared confluence.cfg.xml file error after upgrading to Confluence Data Center 6.10
• There is a known issue where some fonts that Confluence relies on are not available in older Linux distributions. See Confluence UI shows garbled or corrupt text on CAPTCHA, macros and/or diagrams due to missing fonts. 
• 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.x 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.
• 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 > 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 6.5, 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.

Update configuration files after upgrading

The contents of configuration files such as server.xml, web.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) rather than simply overwriting the file with the file from your previous installation, otherwise you will miss out on any improvements we have made.

Check for Atlassian Companion MSI updates

The Atlassian Companion app manages the download and re-upload of files edited in Confluence. If you distribute the Companion app using the Microsoft Installer (MSI), the app won't automatically get the latest security updates and bug fixes. Check the Atlassian Companion app release notes to make sure you're running the latest version.

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:

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.