Why is Confluence (5.7.1) bundled with so many incompatible plugins
Asked by Sergei Dorogin:

I have Confluence 5.7.1 (with Questions 2.10)

In <http://server/plugins/servlet/upm/manage/all> I can see the following add-ons have the warning "This add-on is not compatible with your Confluence instance. An update for this add-on has already been requested from the vendor":

* Basic Macros
* Chart Plugin
* Confluence Blogging RPC Plugin
* Confluence browser fixes
* Confluence Thread Dump Plugin
* Confluence Usage Stats
* IM Presence NG Plugin
*

  #### Layout Macros {#toc-hId-1258142760}

* Live Search Macros
* User Lister

I wonder why is Confluence bundled with so many incompatible plugins?

Is it on purpose or something is wrong the my installation?

I have a trouble with my Confluence - it doesn't contain any macros in Macro Browser except Code macro. So I'm searching for something suspicious in my installation.


Answers:
author: Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
body: A clean installation is not bundled like that. I suspect you've upgraded from an older version, and carried over the older versions of the addons with it?

comments: author: Sergei Dorogin
body: It could be the case. Is it safe to leave them? Can it be related with empty macro browser?


author: Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
body: I'd update them to the what the UPM recommends.It could be breaking the macro browser, yes. If a plugin providing a macro is incompatible, then it would drop that macro from the list. But there are other thing which can cause that too, and I wouldn't expect some broken plugins to leave the list totally empty. I'd update the addons first, then re-test the browser.


author: Sergei Dorogin
body: The problem is that they can't be updated. There are "Disable" and "Request update" buttons for them.


author: Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
body: Ouch. I'm curious to know how you got into that situation - I guessed at an upgrade, was that it? (Because a clean installation of 5.7.1 won't give you broken addons)


author: Sergei Dorogin
body: I downloaded atlassian-confluence-5.7.1.zip and installed, nothing more. I checked the distributive and it does contain these addon.


author: Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
body: Right, so I've just done the same, and I don't have any incompatible addons, so there's something very wrong in your installation.Could you tell us:- Version of Java in use- The version of the "basic macro" that appears to be incompatible- How exactly did you "install" it? (The basics though - was it download, expand, edit confluence-init.properties file, run the startup.sh and answer the questions about databases and users? Or something else?)


author: Sergei Dorogin
body: Java 1.7.0_60 x64 Basic Macros 2.0.5Yes, it was basic install via zip distribution. Confluence is running as Windows service.I tried to install a new instance - yeah, it contains basic macros 2.0.5 but Conf doesn't report it's incompatible. Interesting that plugin's page tells us that it's supported only till 5.5 - <https://marketplace.atlassian.com/plugins/confluence.macros.basic/versions>After I installed Questions addon it still works fine in spaces (I have macros) and Conf doesn't report about incompatibility, but there's no macros in questions. So it may be on purpose - I was sure that questions are kinda normal wiki pages and there should be macros be supported in them.So the bottom line. Incompatibility I encountered is a strange thing and it isn't reproduced in a clean install. As it by itself doesn't breaks anything it's not much sense to search for its cause. As for empty macros browser in questions (not in pages!) (this is the most annoying issue for me), it's reproduced on a clean install and even could be "by desing" (but I could not find any info on it). But anyway it doesn't relate to the original incompatibility issue.


author: Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
body: Ok, I'd raise the empty macro browser question as a new question - it'll get more visibility that way! And we know it's not the odd install with broken addons that aren't broken in a clean install.


author: Sergei Dorogin
body: Actually I did this some time ago - <https://answers.atlassian.com/questions/22643894/empty-macro-browser-no-custom-macros>


Tags: confluence-administration