Cannot find "external_id" column when trying to upgrade to a Confluence CDC license after upgrading from a pre-5.5 Confluence Clustered installation
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
This article applies to Confluence Data Center 5.6 or later.
Symptoms
When upgrading from pre-5.5 Confluence Clustered installation to Confluence Data Center 5.6 or higher, you will be told that
Your current license is for the old Cluster edition of Confluence and is not valid with Confluence Data Center edition
When you visit Confluence with the browser to fix the license, you an error message along the following lines:
ERROR: column this.external_id does not exist
ORA-00904: "THIS"."EXTERNAL_ID": invalid identifier
Cause
Due to changes in how Confluence Data Center licenses work, the upgrade from the old cluster license will sometimes fail depending on the login state of the admin user performing the upgrade. Specifically, if the user has their remember-me cookie present when they go to enter the new license, then the error will occur.
Resolution
Clear the seraph.confluence browser cookie related to the Confluence server being upgraded. You can either do this before the upgrade starts, or after you get the above error. If you get the error before clearing the cookie, then just refresh the page, and you should then be presented with a screen allowing you to enter the Data Center license.
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