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Atlassian ConfluenceWith the projectdoc Toolbox we take advantage of space blueprints. Space blueprints allow to define templates for spaces in Confluence. This makes it very easy to create spaces of a given type that have the same basic structure. Spaces with similar structures are easier to use, since team members already know where to look for certain kinds of information.

Every doctype add-on we publish is based on the projectdoc Toolbox and provides at least one space blueprint. During the development of these add-ons we often deploy new versions and test them for usability. We also check if the doctypes and space blueprints are actually used, and if not, remove them before we publish them.

Failing Space Wizard Dialog

Currently we encountered a problem where Confluence did no longer present the list of space wizards, but simply displayed an error in the dialog window.

Error message after opening the Space Wizard Dialog

The log file shows this:

[INFO]  ..... WARN [http-nio-1990-exec-7] 
         [confluence.impl.hibernate.ConfluenceHibernateTransactionManager] 
         doRollback Performing rollback. Transactions:
[INFO]  ->[PluginReadWriteTx]: PROPAGATION_REQUIRED,ISOLATION_DEFAULT (Session #.....)
[INFO]  – referer: ...../confluence/pages/viewpage.action?spaceKey=PP&title=x | 
        url: /confluence/rest/create-dialog/1.0/space-blueprint/dialog/web-items | 
        traceId: ..... | userName: .....

The Cause

If you encounter this message it is very likely that you have deactivated an add-on that contains a space blueprint.

If it is only deactivated, simply activating it again will make the problem go away.

Reproducing the Problem

To reproduce the problem follow these steps:

  1. Have an add-on installed that provides at least on space blueprint
  2. Deactivate this add-on
  3. Try to create a new space with the space wizard (Spaces -> Create Space)

Instead of having a dialog top select a space wizard, you see the error message in the view and log file.

Narrowing the Problem

After some further investigation we discovered that the problem is independent of the used database. With MySQL, PostgreSQL, and H2 the problem could be reconstructed.

We found that the problem first occurred with version 6.11.2 of Confluence, while in version 6.11.1 and before everything was fine.

At first we checked if the problem was only related to the projectdoc Toolbox, since 6.11.2 has been around for some time. We thought it very unlikely that such a problem would have gone unnoticed by the community. In fact the problem is reproducible with every space blueprint.

Workaround

To work around the problem, the admin user needs to fix issues on the database level. On the Atlassian Community the post Confluence add Space fails - An unknown server error has occurred provided a solution to a similar problem that also fixes the issue we have encountered.

In fact, dropping the AO_54C900_SPACE_BLUEPRINT_AO after server stop, removing the plugin cache directories, and restarting the server also fixes the problem: new spaces can again be created.

Be careful! Backup your data!

 

Please make sure to backup your system and save any of your data before you try to fix this issue!

What worked on our system to fix the problem might harm you installation.

There is also a knowledge base article Creating new page or space loads forever that seems related. But the described problem in this article is that the process for displaying the space wizard dialog loads forever, whereas in our case the process terminates and shows an error message.

Ticket

We filed a bug report to Atlassian and they could reproduce the problem. Atlassian created a ticket CONFSERVER-57866 to track this issue. You may would like to vote for it in case you are dealing with space wizards frequently and happen to deactivate or deinstall them.


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