Upgrade, file in use 'Access denied' bin folder (windows standalone)
Asked by Alex Suslin:

I'm upgrading the confluence to a new version. After all the files are backed up the installation process is trying to remove the old confluence data. However it is unable to remove the following folder: X:\\Program Files\\Atlassian\\Confluence\\bin

And I got the message that some files are in use, please close all the applications and try again. When I am trying to manually delete that directory I got an error Access denied (I can't even enter that directory, look at the permissions or change them). Ok I am the administrator of that server and I am in the Adminiatrators group, confluence service is stopped.

The weird thing is that I got exactly the same situation during JIRA update, so I had to install it into another directory where everything was smooth.

Any ideas why? and how I can remove that directory and prevent the same situation in future. Everytime install Confluence into another directory is not an option.

Thanks in advance,

Alex Suslin


Answers:
author: Norman Abramovitz
body: All it takes is someone with explorer open in the bin directory for this error to occur or even a cmd window cd'ed to an Atlassian directory. I use a product called handle from sysinternals for the windows platform to check if there are any unexpected open handles before upgrading any product. I also normally shutdown the application as well before the running handle just to make sure I can recognize the culprit easier.

I have had some browser connections linger until the they recognized that the connection was dropped.

comments: author: Norman Abramovitz
body: Sometimes it is easier to reboot and install to make sure nothing is there but if an explorer is still open to the directory, it will reconnect and continue to cause problems.


author: Alex Suslin
body: thanks for your comment, however this is live server where lots of websites are hosted... I cannot just reboot it. No open handlers to this file... I've checked dozen of times (


author: Norman Abramovitz
body: It may not be just files, it could even be a process that was started from the atlassian directory structure like cmd. Given that some directories are removed, I doubt that it is permssions unless you are using symlinks.


author: Alex Suslin
body: right, after server reboot, it gones... however why?


author: Norman Abramovitz
body: I would need to analyze a dump to give exact reasons, but the generic answer is there an OS resource (locks, waits, processes, handles, network resources, thread, etc) or even an error in the OS that had the directory resource count greater than 1. A reboot will clear any transient causes and if the issue was not transient, you can get a cleaner system dump to analyze.


author: Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
body: That's all to do with the file system operations and permissions, it's not something Jira or Confluence will handle for you (the installation will follow whatever the defaults are on the server)

To prevent it happening again, you'll need to work out what the settings are on the file system and change them to something more useful. Similarly for fixing them - as an admin, you'll need to work out what the settings are and change them.

comments: author: Alex Suslin
body: I have a bunch of questions-answers from Atlassian support and even we have setup video screen meeting. The problem is still open and I installed the confluence into another directory.