How can I convert content from 3.0 to 4.0 easily?
Asked by Jonathan Simonoff:

I've got a few dozen (maybe a hundred) pages in a 3.0.1 wiki that I need to bring into a 4.0.4 (soon to be 4.1) wiki.

I've spent much too much time (two or three days so far) trying to do this, with no success at all.

First, you can't do this in one step. You have to make a new 3.0 series wiki, import the material into there, upgrade it to 3.5 series, then upgrade it again to 4.0 series. At least, I think that's what I need to do -- in actuality, I haven't been able to get the 3.5 upgrade to work yet, and I see from this forum that the 3.5 to 4.0 upgrade also has problems for people.

This is awful -- the pages are not that complicated, they are just pages. It looks like would have been better for me to have just done it by hand, as if I weren't using Confluence to begin with. This is frustrating, and if I can't find a solution, I'm going to look at other wikis -- I'd decided to go with Confluence for this new wiki partly because I already had Confluence content in an older wiki, and I have extensive experience with it. It looks like I'm gaining nothing from those connections, though, and it may be that getting a free product or one with different features is a better choice.

Is there some way around this? Does Atlassian offer a conversion service? Are there consultants who will do this conversion? Is there a way to use the Universal Wiki Converter to convert older Confluence ocntent?


Answers:
author: Jonathan Simonoff
body: The answer is that there is no easy way, but I did finally do it.

I did it by going 3.0 to 3.1 to 3.3 to 3.5 to 4.0. Also, at each stage I backed up the entire site to a zip, and at the next stage restored it, rather than trying to convert the database tables. I also specified a fresh Confluence home directory at each stage.

comments: author: Ellen Feaheny [AppFusions]
body: Great to hear! Congrats! :)


author: Ellen Feaheny [AppFusions]
body: Honorable goals Jonathan - and certainly a target for all software corporations.

Atlassian inclusive, that spends alot of time/resources to continually improve their software and administration (and documentation) better and better - to be both easier and cutting edge technology usage and features. With much success.

But I have yet to meet the perfect Enterprise software platform/corp that handles perfect push-button upgrades from many releases down, and also pushes forth a technology growing innovation agenda (and proven).

Not sure your expectations are fair given the endless content and system components and variations that make up the whole, imho. Also - do not agree with you that an external 3rd party wiki migration with many foreign elements is simpler than a Confluence to Confluence upgrade.

We'd be happy to help you get through this easier - that's what Atlassian Experts do (<http://www.atlassian.com/resources/experts>).

Best,

Ellen  
info at appfusions dot com


author: Ellen Feaheny [AppFusions]
body: Jonathan -

Also to be clear - what you are trying to do is not a "migration". It is a multi-step/stage "upgrade". Different.

A wiki migration, which is what the UWC is for - refers to a content move from a 3rd party wiki to Confluence - not Confluence to Confluence.

Hopefully with some of the tips offered here though you will have some better luck on all this.

If you are new to Confluence, indeed it can seem like alot alot at first - hang in there.

Confluence 4.X is worth it!

comments: author: Jonathan Simonoff
body: Regardless, it shouldn't be harder to convert material from an earlier version of Confluence than it is to convert it from a completely different wiki.

BTW, I'm not at all new to Confluence, just new to 4.0 (I'm trying to do more on the admin side than I have before, though --in particular, I haven't done upgrades by myself before.) One thing I did before was move literally tens of thousands of pages from a different wiki system into Comfluence, so I have a lot of that kind of conversion experience. A lot of my frustration is in finding the Confluenece-to-Confluence conversion far more gotcha-filled than the foreign-to-Confluence conversion process. I mean, I'm really trying to just move some data from one Confluence wiki to another -- the fact that I have to do a multi-stage upgrade (with no Atlassian information clearly saying which stages I need to hit) is a side effect.


author: David at David Simpson Apps
body: Jonathan,

To migrate your content from 3.0.1 to 4.x, you'll have to first upgrade through various point releases up to version 3.5 (remembering the license format change at version 3.3). Version 3.5 is the only supported path for upgrading to 4.x.

Various [Atlassian Experts](http://www.atlassian.com/resources/experts) (what Atlassian call their business partners), [AppFusions](http://www.appfusions.com/) included have the knowledge to help you through this process.

With regards to the **Universal Wiki Converter**, this is currently a community driven effort that is very dependant on the content it parses. The results absolutely dependant on the source content, your knowledge of the migration process and the effort exerted during the UWC-based migration. Unfortunately, it's not the black-box solution that some people may expect.

Also, support for Confluence 4.x is not available at this stage, so to migrate to Confluence 4.x, you'll need to migrate to version 3.5 first. For more info on the Universal Wiki Convertor, I'd direct questions at @Laura Kolker and also tag the question with "**universal-wiki-converter**".

comments: author: Jonathan Simonoff
body: Thanks, Davd, that is informative.

Do I have to do each point release (3.0 to 3.1 to 3.2 to 3.3 to 3.4 to 3.5 to 4.0)?


author: Ellen Feaheny [AppFusions]
body: Hi Jonathan -

Also check these Upgrade Notes out if you haven't already -

<http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/DOC/Upgrade+Notes+Overview>

You can likely go from 3.0 \> 3.3, 3.3 \> 3.5, then last one to 4.X.

Of course you are working on staging servers (and have backups of original), *we will assume!*

The good news is that in general, you can skip the point releases 3.3+ for what you are doing.

However, there's ALOT of new features and good fixes along the way - obvious, and obscure/less obvious (but also useful between ALL the releases), so also take the time to review these notes.

They are awesome - Power in Knowledge.

<http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/DOC/Confluence+Release+Summary>

<http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/DOC/Older+Releases>

If you run into snags, happy to help you!

Ellen

[info@appfusions.com](mailto:info@appfusions.com)


author: Andrew Frayling
body: Hi Jonathan,

Sorry to hear you're having problems upgrading from 3.0.1 to 4.0.4. Unfortunately there is no way to upgrade directly from a pre-3.5 version of Confluence to a 4.x version (you have to upgrade to 3.5 first) and I don't believe the Universal Wiki Converter has been upgraded to be 4.x compatible yet.

Networked Collaboration offer upgrade services and have performed several successful upgrades of pre-3.5 Confluence wikis to version 4.x. If you would like us to carry out the upgrade for you please feel free to contact me at [andrew@networkedcollaboration.com](mailto:andrew@networkedcollaboration.com)

Andrew.

comments: author: Jonathan Simonoff
body: Just to clarify -- my problem isn't upgrading, it is importing 3.0.1 content into a 4.0.4 wiki. The upgrade comes in because that apparently is the only way to achieve that other than doing each page by hand.

Thanks for the info about UWC not being available for 4.0. That is another strike against Confluence -- not just that it doesn't exist, but that the interface gives no indication that it doesn't -- in fact, just before I saw your message, I downloaded the UWC via a button in the 4.0.4 wiki, which gave me no indication that it wouldn't work. Thank you very much for saving me from wasting more time barking up the wrong tree again.


author: Ellen Feaheny [AppFusions]
body: Work is in progress to improve the UWC efforts/doc, etc., but also if you understood the history behind the Wiki markup change between 3.5.X and 4.X, you would understand that actually migrating to 3.5.X makes alot more sense at this stage.

Once you have a stable 3.5.X system, upgrading to 4.X is relatively straight-forward.

Feel your pain on the sys admin experience Jonathan, but also you have to remember that these are Enterprise systems - not just desktop OS software. There's ALOT involved when it comes to human entered unstructured data such as wiki content.

This are some great links / pages though - if you have not seen. Will give you some insights..

<http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/DOC/Confluence+4.0+Editor+FAQ>

<http://blogs.atlassian.com/2011/11/why-we-removed-wiki-markup-editor-in-confluence-4/>


Tags: conversion

universal-wiki-converter