Symptoms

Getting the error of the following when upgrading the JIRA instance:

The home directory cannot be a sub-directory of the installation directory. Aborting the upgrade error...

Cause

The JIRA Home directory located inside of the JIRA Installation directory. Example:

JIRA Installation Directory: C:\JIRA
JIRA Home Directory: C:\\JIRA\Application Data

Resolution

1. Separate the installation and home directory in different location . Example:

   C:\JIRA
   C:\JIRA_Home
   

2. Shutdown JIRA.
3. Move JIRA Home Directory to the new location
4. Configure JIRA to use the new home directory
5. Restart JIRA and test if the change take effect

6. Resume the upgrade