Skip to Content

Wiki source code of Busting the Work Confluence

Last modified by Normann P. Nielsen on 2025/12/12 15:11
Show last authors
1 Thursday night on the couch, having a day off friday, I decided to do some layout work on the Confluence we use at my workplace (just for the fun of it, as my work is my hobby - sort of anyway).
2
3 I had created a new User Macro, that I wanted to implement on the Dashboard, so I started editing in the Global Layouts in Confluence to place it on the Dashboard:
4
5 [[image:Screen Shot 2014-02-02 at 20.01.39.jpg||width="842"||height="296"]]
6
7 As part of the changing of the Dashboard code, I entered:
8
9
10 {{code}}
11 {html}<font size="4">Space Quick Select</font>{html}
12 {{/code}}
13
14 pressed "Save" and:
15
16 [[image:bam_logo.jpg]]
17
18 the Confluence went down - just giving me a "Service Unavailable" from the Traffic Manager.
19
20 Shit, I restarted the instance- no improvement.....so starting to diagnose:
21
22
23 {{code}}
24 npn@docs01:~$ wget -O - localhost:8080
25 --2014-01-30 21:46:27-- http://localhost:8080/
26 Resolving localhost... ::1, 127.0.0.1
27 Connecting to localhost|::1|:8080... connected.
28 HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 500 Internal Server Error
29 2014-01-30 21:46:28 ERROR 500: Internal Server Error.
30
31 npn@docs01:~$
32 {{/code}}
33
34
35
36 Hm, error 500, diagnosting further:
37
38
39 {{code}}
40 root@docs01:/pack/confluence-data/logs# tail -f atlassian-confluence.log
41 caused by: java.lang.RuntimeException: Error rendering template for decorator global
42 at com.atlassian.confluence.setup.velocity.ApplyDecoratorDirective.render(ApplyDecoratorDirective.java:186)
43 caused by: org.apache.velocity.exception.ParseErrorException: Encountered "4" at /decorators/global.vmd[line 38, column 87]
44 Was expecting one of:
45 "," ...
46 ")" ...
47 <WHITESPACE> ...
48
49 at org.apache.velocity.Template.process(Template.java:141)
50 {{/code}}
51
52
53
54 So, It seems the code I put in the Global layout makes the Confluence crash totally, not just rendering the Dashboard, but TOTALLY!!!
55
56 I fired up for MySQL and looked at the DECORATORS table:
57
58
59 {{code}}
60 mysql> select DECORATORID,DECORATORNAME FROM DECORATOR;
61 +-------------+-----------------------+
62 | DECORATORID | DECORATORNAME |
63 +-------------+-----------------------+
64 | 64913409 | decorators/global.vmd |
65 | 48300036 | decorators/page.vmd |
66 | 59080705 | decorators/page.vmd |
67 +-------------+-----------------------+
68 3 rows in set (0.00 sec)
69
70 mysql>
71 {{/code}}
72
73
74
75 Now, 2 choises are available:
76
77 1. Fix It
78 1. Delete the DECORATORID=64913409 record.
79 All though I am pretty sure number 2 works (same as using "Reset Default"), I went for number 1:
80
81
82
83 First, I shut down Confluence completely.
84
85 Then I made a complete dump of the Confluence Database:
86
87
88 {{code}}
89 mysqldump -uconfluence -p confluence > confluence.sql
90 {{/code}}
91
92
93
94 After securing the backup, I dumped the DECORATOR table:
95
96
97 {{code}}
98 mysqldump -uconfluence -p confluence DECORATOR > DECORATOR.sql
99 {{/code}}
100
101
102
103 After that, I changed the DECORATOR.sql file i the "vim" editor - stripping off everything but the record for DECORATORID=64913409, and change the "INSERT INTO" to an "UPDATE"  so it looked like:
104
105
106 {{code}}
107 UPDATE DECORATORS SET body='### ...code...code...code.' WHERE DECORATORID=64913409
108 {{/code}}
109
110 And the whole point being that I removed the "{html}<font size=\"4\">Space Quick Select</font>{html}" from the body code.
111
112
113
114 Finally, I put back the decorator:
115
116
117 {{code}}
118 mysql -uconfluence -p confluence < DECORATOR.sql
119 {{/code}}
120
121
122
123 And started the Confluence Instance:
124
125
126
127 [[image:success.jpg||width="300"]]
128
129 - up and running again