Here are some important notes on upgrading to Confluence 7.1. For details of the new features and improvements in this release, see the Confluence 7.1 Release Notes. 

Upgrading to Java 11

In this release, we've added support for Java 11. Java 8 is still bundled with Confluence, so you can continue using Java 8 for now, or switch to Java 11 manually. See Change the Java vendor or version Confluence uses to find out how to switch your Java version.

Some of the Java arguments used in our setenv.sh  / setenv.bat  files are no longer recognised in Java 11. If you decide to move to Java 11, make sure you apply your customizations manually when you upgrade, don't simply copy over your old setenv file (or existing Java options if you run Confluence as a service). 

-XX:-PrintGCDetails -XX:+PrintGCDateStamps -XX:-PrintTenuringDistribution -Xloggc:$LOGBASEABS/logs/gc-`date +%F_%H-%M-%S`.log -XX:+UseGCLogFileRotation -XX:NumberOfGCLogFiles=5 -XX:GCLogFileSize=2M
-Djava.locale.providers=COMPAT,SPI 

-Xlog:gc+age=debug:file="%atlassian_logsdir%\gc-%atlassian_timestamp%.log"::filecount=5,filesize=2M
-Djava.locale.providers=JRE,SPI,CLDR

-XX:+IgnoreUnrecognizedVMOptions 
-Djdk.tls.server.protocols=TLSv1.1,TLSv1.2 
-Djdk.tls.client.protocols=TLSv1.1,TLSv1.2    

If you have added additional arguments, you may need to check that these are still available in Java 11, as they may cause errors when you start Confluence. 

Change to the Spaces List macro

The Spaces List macro now shows only current spaces by default. A new macro parameter is available if you would like it to also display archived spaces. 

Enabling the Edit in Office dark feature

As mentioned in the release notes, we've extended support for the legacy Edit in Office dark feature (previously only available in 6.13.6 and 6.15.6).

If you're unable to use the Atlassian Companion app in your environment, you can choose to switch to Edit in Office functionality by enabling the dark feature. If you enabled the dark feature in a 6.13 or 6.15 version, there's no need to do anything, Edit in Office will remain enabled after you upgrade to 7.1.

It's important to note that you can't use Companion app and Edit in Office together in the same site. When Edit in Office is enabled, WebDAV integration is restored, and all Companion app integration is automatically disabled. See Enable the Edit in Office dark feature for more information.

To read more about our future plans for file editing in Confluence, check our community announcement. 

Upgrading from 6.x or earlier

If you set up your mail server using a JNDI location (in the server.xml ), there are now two additional jar files that you'll need to move from <confluence-install>\confluence\WEB-INF\lib to <confluence-install>\lib : 

• javax.activation-x.x.x.jar
• javax.activation-api-1.2.0.jar

Upgrading from 6.3 or earlier

If you are upgrading from Confluence 6.3 or earlier, there's a known issue where spaces do not appear in the space directory. You'll need to reindex your site after upgrading to fix this. 

Supported platforms changes

In this release we have:

• Added support for Java 11.

End of support announcements

Advance Notice: End of support for Internet Explorer 11

To allow us to continue to take advantage of modern web standards to deliver improved functionality and the best possible user experience across all of our products, we have decided to end support for Internet Explorer 11. 

Confluence 7.4.x (Enterprise Release) will be the last release to support Internet Explorer 11.

Advance Notice: End of support for PostgreSQL 9.4, MySQL 5.6 and Oracle 12c R1

Confluence 7.3.x will be the last release to support PostgreSQL 9.4, MySQL 5.6 and Oracle 12c R1.

For more information on all of these notices, see End of Support Announcements for Confluence. 

Infrastructure changes 

Head to Preparing for Confluence 7.1 to find out more about changes under the hood. 

Known issues

• There's a known issue in JavaMail 1.6.2 which may affect you if you set up your mail server in the server.xml. See CONFSERVER-59040.
• 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
• Synchrony will not start on Windows with AdoptOpenJDK jdk8u212.  See CONFSERVER-58784) for a workaround.
• 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. 

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.

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 7.0, 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.
6. Use the Confluence Post-Upgrade Checks to ensure that everything works as expected.

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.