403 error during connection between Confluence and Jira for User Management

Platform Notice: Data Center Only - This article only applies to Atlassian products on the Data Center platform.

Note that this KB was created for the Data Center version of the product. Data Center KBs for non-Data-Center-specific features may also work for Server versions of the product, however they have not been tested. Support for Server* products ended on February 15th 2024. If you are running a Server product, you can visit the Atlassian Server end of support announcement to review your migration options.

*Except Fisheye and Crucible

Summary

After you save the Atlassian Jira directory details inside Confluence, the User Directories page fails with the following error:

"Connection test failed. Response from the server: com.atlassian.crowd.exception.ApplicationPermissionException: Forbidden (403) Warning: Encountered a "403 - Forbidden" error while loading this page. client.forbidden.exception"

Environment

Jira version 9 and later

Solution

Configure IP address of Confluence connection to Jira

  1. Navigate to Jira Administration

  2. Select User Management

  3. Select Jira User Server

  4. Pass the IP address of the Confluence as a wildcard as seen in the following screenshot:

    • The Jira user server page allows you to pass IP addresses with an asterisk as wildcards
  5. Reinitiate the connection from Confluence to use Jira for User Management

After you configure the IP address to pass as a wildcard on the Jira site, reinitiating the connection from Confluence should resolve the error.

Updated on May 22, 2025

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