Typically, Confluence data is restored from the Administration Console or from the Confluence Setup Wizard.

If you are experiencing problems restoring from an zipped XML backup file, it is still possible to restore provided you have:

1. A backup of your home directory.
2. A backup of your database (if you're using an external database).

Instructions for this method of restoring differ depending on whether you are using the embedded database or an external database (like Oracle, MS SQL Server, MySQL or Postgres).

Embedded Database

If you are running against the embedded database, the database is located inside the database folder of your Confluence Home Directory. Hence, all you need to do is:

1. Retrieve the most recent backup of your home directory.
2. Unpack the Confluence distribution and point the confluence-init.properties file to this directory.

External Database

If you're using an external database, you need to do the following.

1. Prepare backups of your home directory and database (preferably backups that are dated the same). That is, make sure the home directory is accessible on the filesystem and the database available to be connected to.
2. If this database happens to have a different name, or is on a different server, you need to modify the jdbc url in the confluence.cfg.xml file inside the Confluence Home Directory. The value of this property is specified as hibernate.connection.url.
3. Unpack the Confluence distribution and point the confluence-init.properties file to the home directory.