Below are some essential notes on upgrading to Confluence 2.9. For details of the new features and improvements in this release, please read the Confluence 2.9 Release Notes.

On this page:

Upgrade Notes

Plugins

Please check the following if you have added any plugins to Confluence:

• If you are using any third-party plugins, please test them thoroughly before rolling 2.9 into production.
• If you have installed the Gallery plugin onto your Confluence site, please remove it (or do not reinstall it after upgrading Confluence) in order to get the benefit of the new Gallery macro. The Gallery macro has been significantly improved in this release. It now incorporates features which were previously available only in the separate Gallery plugin.
• If you have installed the PageTree plugin or the Pagetree Search plugin onto your Confluence site, please remove them (or do not reinstall them after upgrading Confluence) in order to get the benefit of the new Pagetree macro. The Pagetree macro has been significantly improved in this release. It replaces the previous PageTree plugin, and incorporates the pagetree search option.
• If you are using the Blog Posts macro, be aware that invalid space keys will now be detected and cause the macro to fail. Previously they were ignored and blog posts from all spaces were returned.

Java Versions

Java 1.4 is not supported in Confluence 2.9 and later. Please refer to the Java 1.4 Support Timeline for more information.

Before upgrading to Confluence 2.9, you will need to ensure your environment is running at least Java 5. Confluence 2.9 supports Java 5 and Java 6. We recommend Java 6 because of its increased performance and easier troubleshooting, due to enhanced memory dump and profiling capabilities.

You can check your current Java version in Confluence:

1. 
2. Select 'System Information' from the 'Administration' section in the left-hand panel.
3. Refer to 'Java Version'.
   • If the version is 1.5 or higher, you do not need to do anything.
   • If the version is 1.4, you need to upgrade your JDK before you can upgrade to Confluence 2.9.

If you are running the Confluence EAR-WAR edition against your own application server, you will need to check with your application server vendor about which JDK versions are supported.

Supported Databases and Application Servers

Additions to Application Server Support

We have added the following versions to the list of officially supported application servers:

• Resin 3.0 and 3.1
• Tomcat 6 (see known issue with authenticated datasources)

Platforms No Longer Supported

The following platforms were on the 'unsupported but working' list for Confluence 2.8. They are not on that list as of Confluence 2.9. They probably still work, but we have not tested them. Please upgrade soon.

• MySQL 4.0 — please upgrade to MySQL 5
• SQLServer 2000 — please upgrade to SQLServer 2005
• Websphere 6.0 — please upgrade to Websphere 6.1
• Weblogic 8.1 — please upgrade to Weblogic 9.2

Please refer to the list of supported application servers and databases on our Supported Platforms topic for the updated matrix.

Advance Notice — Changes to Supported Platforms in the Next Release

The next major release of Confluence after 2.9 will not support the following platforms/versions any more. We will still test those platforms infrequently, and Confluence will probably still work fine with them for a while, but they will be not officially supported.

• MySQL 4.1 — please upgrade to MySQL 5
• Tomcat 5.0 — please upgrade to Tomcat 5.5 or 6
• Resin 2 — please upgrade to Resin 3
• JBoss 4.0.x — please upgrade to JBoss 4.2.x

JavaScript Libraries

jQuery is the supported JavaScript library for plugin developers.

Advance notice — deprecated libraries: We have decided to standardise on jQuery as the JavaScript library for Confluence. This library will eventually replace all others. For this reason, use of the following JavaScript libraries in Confluence is deprecated:

• Prototype
• Scriptaculous

Because there is a lot of legacy plugin code using Prototype and Scriptaculous, these will continue to be available for this release of Confluence.

The Yahoo! User Interface Library (YUI) has been removed from this release, following its deprecation in Confluence 2.8.

Confluence Themes

Advance notice — The Confluence Classic Theme will be deprecated in a future release. Confluence 2.9 will be the last version that supports the Confluence Classic Theme. This theme uses outdated typography and formatting, which was replaced by the new-look Default Theme in Confluence 2.6. At that time, we introduced the Classic Theme to minimise the impact on customers who relied on the older typography. After Confluence 2.9, the Classic Theme will no longer be supported.

Upgrade Procedure

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

1. Before you upgrade, we strongly recommend that you back up your Confluence home directory and database. See the documentation on backing up your Confluence site. If you are using an external database, perform a database backup.
   
   
2. If your version of Confluence is earlier than 2.8.x, read the release notes and upgrade guides for all releases between your version and the latest version. In particular:
   • Please read the 2.8 upgrade notes.
   • If you are upgrading from 2.1 or earlier, please read the 2.2 release notes.
   • If you are upgrading from 2.2 or earlier, you will need to upgrade to Confluence 2.7.0 first, confirm the upgrade was successful, then upgrade again from version 2.7.0 to version 2.8.2. For more details, please refer to CONF-11767.
     
     
3. Download the latest version of Confluence.
   
   
4. Follow the instructions in the Upgrade Guide.
   
   
5. If you encounter a problem during the upgrade, please create a support ticket and one of our support engineers will assist you through the process.

RELATED TOPICS

Confluence 2.9 Release Notes