Upgrading Confluence from 5.x to 6.15.10
Asked by Radecom Automatisering:

Is there someone here to help us with upgrading Confluence 5.x to 6.15.10.

We tried upgrading it several times. But no luck. It keeps ending up in error messages. The last messages we got is that the JRE_HOME environmental table isn't set, while this was set.

I tried Googling this message and tried all options without any luck. We need to update it to a newer version to go the Cloud in the end.


Answers:
author: Bill Bailey
body: There were a number of changes made over the course of Version 6. I would try to upgrade to an earlier version (like the first LTS version) to get through the first set of changes.

And then upgrade to the last LTS version, 6.13.23. That will get you all of the fixes for version 6

comments: author: Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
body: When I've run into problems upgrading from Jira 5.x to 6.x, it's always been fixed by taking 5.x to 5.10.highest and then upgrading the resulting system again to 6.0 or 6.6, then up to whatever the target version is (the last one was fine jumping from 6.6 to 7.13 - the last long-term-support)


author: Radecom Automatisering
body: Our version is 5.10.0. So that would mean i can go from that version to 5.10.9 and then to 6.15.10?


author: Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
body: I wouldn't bother with 5.10.9.

5.10.1, 5.10.2 and so on, through to 5.10.9 are minor releases (tweaks, bug fixes, corrections), and are very unlikely to introduce anything that's going to make your upgrade to 6.0 or 6.6 easier or more difficult. I was thinking more about the case where you're starting with 5.1 or 5.2 - those should be taken up to 5.10 before going up to 6.6


author: Radecom Automatisering
body: That would be upgrading 103 times to get to 6.15.10!?

Is that correct?


author: Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
body: Eh? What? Where did you get 103 steps from "5.x to 5.10, then 6.6, then your target version"? I count 3 in there (and it's only 2 as you're already on 5.10)


author: Radecom Automatisering
body: So. 5.10.0 (Current) to 6.6 to 6.15.10? (Just want to be clear)


author: Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
body: Yes, that's my recommendation.


author: Radecom Automatisering
body: Well it did not work. After upgrading to version 6.6 i get the error message \[The JRE_HOME environmental variable is not defined correctly\]


author: Radecom Automatisering
body: Ok that problem is now solved. Next issue is that confluence is not starting up in the browser. Seems like Java and tomcat are starting fine. Jira also works. Just not confluence


author: Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
body: That's a failure to follow the installation routine, nothing to do with the version you are using.

How is your original Confluence installed? What did you do differently to the install guide?


author: Radecom Automatisering
body: Just followed the guide step by step, and afterwards it just doesn't work like it should work. I've been trying to upgrade confluence for weeks now without succes...


author: Radecom Automatisering
body: Upgrade to 6.0.1 worked! Upgrade from 6.0.1 to 6.6 now. Which looks good, but it seems to get stuck at this point. (image attached)

![tomcat.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/176898iC6A3D75316199AAB/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "tomcat.png")


author: Radecom Automatisering
body: Since we are at 6.0.1, should I update to 6.0.2 and so on? Small steps?


author: Bas van Ooteghem
body: Anyone any idea? Is my screenshot clear?


author: Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
body: We'd need to see the rest of the log for the full errors.


author: Bas van Ooteghem
body: I managed to upgrade to 6.0.2. Confluence took a very long time to start up (first startup). Is that normal?


author: Nic Brough -Adaptavist-
body: Yes, the upgrade process is two parts - the first part is you physically updating the installation, and then the data needs to be upgraded to the new model. So when an upgraded system first starts up, there can be a lot of database updates to make before it becomes usable. Plus a re-index.


author: Bas van Ooteghem
body: After upgrading to 6.6 it seems to be stuck here while starting confluence

![tomcat.png](https://community.atlassian.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/177894iB933A05CD73065E9/image-size/large?v=v2&px=999 "tomcat.png")


author: Daniel Ebers
body: As the question to troubling upgrade processes repeats recently in Community.  
If your own staff gets stucks with migrated trained and skilled partners are available which are experienced in doing upgrades and complex migrations.  
You can locate a partner near you from partner directory:  
<https://partnerdirectory.atlassian.com/>

Regards,  
Daniel


author: Kristin Lyons
body: If you are on Confluence 5.10 you should be able to just migrate from that to Cloud. Do you have any more error logs or screenshots of the errors you are seeing after the upgrade? What environment are you using?

comments: author: Radecom Automatisering
body: We cannot go from 5.10 to cloud because the cloud migration tool keeps failing, therefor we try to upgrade first to a newer version


Tags: atl-orange

confluence-server

migration-customer-care

server