Here are some important notes on upgrading to Confluence 6.14. For details of the new features and improvements in this release, see the Confluence 6.14 Release Notes. 

Upgrade notes

Changes to Confluence search

As mentioned in the release notes, we've made some big improvements to Confluence search:

• New expanded search panel – we've removed the dropdown quick navigation feature, and replaced it with an expanded search panel. 
• Full site search – the quick navigation feature previously restricted your search to titles. The new Confluence search now performs a full text search of your site content, including page content, space descriptions, and attached files.
• Interactive filters – We've added clickable filters to the new search feature, allowing users to narrow down their results to a particular space, type or time frame, or to content containing a specific contributor or label.

The new search feature is enabled by default. Head to our updated search guide for a full overview.

Check you have the latest version of Confluence Questions and Team Calendars

If you have Questions for Confluence or Team Calendars installed on your site, you'll need to be on a recent app version to ensure the icons display correctly in search results.

Required app versions:

• Team Calendars 6.0.25 or later
• Questions for Confluence 2.6.15 or later.

Head to > Manage apps to update these apps via the Universal Plugin Manager.

Simpler onboarding for new users

New users joining your Confluence site will no longer be prompted to upload a profile picture or watch spaces when they first log in. We’ve replaced the three-step onboarding wizard with a simple 'Welcome to Confluence' modal, so they can get to know your site before deciding which spaces to watch.

Repair ancestors scheduled job

The parent and child relationship between pages (the page hierarchy) is stored in a table in the database. Any problems with the data in this table can result in page restrictions not being inherited correctly. 

There's now a scheduled job to find and repair any problems in the CONFANCESTORS table on a regular basis. The job runs once each day, and will keep your pages in order.  Head to Rebuilding the Ancestor Table to find out more. 

Users can now add page numbers to PDF exports

When you export a space to PDF you can now choose to include page numbers. Numbers are placed in the centre of the footer. 

If you've customised the PDF stylesheet to use CSS to add page numbers in a different location, you may want to remove this CSS to avoid adding two sets of page numbers on your pages. 

AdoptOpenJDK

In Confluence 6.14.0 we continue to bundle the Oracle JRE, but it's very straightforward to switch to AdoptOpenJDK if you prefer.  

From Confluence 6.14.1 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.

Supported platforms changes

No changes to supported platforms in this release. 

Support for View File macros

In Confluence 5.9 we ended support for the View File macros. We know from your feedback that the existing View File macros provide important functionality that the newer file upload and preview experience does not, so we've decided to reverse this decision. The following macros are now fully supported:

• Office Excel
• Office Word
• Office PowerPoint
• PDF

This means we will fix bugs relating to these macros and will make minor improvements, such as restoring the Edit button, which was addd in this release.  

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.

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:

Infrastructure changes 

For developers

Head to Preparing for Confluence 6.14 to find out more about changes under the hood. 

End of support announcements

No announcements. 

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
  
• There is a known issue where site exports cannot be successfully imported because some data is missing  See  CONFSERVER-58556 - Getting issue details... STATUS  for more information.  We do not recommend relying on site export as a backup in 6.14. You should regularly back up your database, and local home directories manually. 
• 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.

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.