Confluence interface not rendering properly - HTTP 404 or 500 errors when loading CSS/JS
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
Confluence interface doesn't render properly. All menus, buttons, and images seem to be broken, without any CSS styling or JavaScript.
There isn't any customization in place, and you are accessing Confluence through a reverse proxy.
When inspecting the Network tab, using Browser Developer Tools, we can see a lot of HTTP 404 (Not Found) errors when loading CSS and JS.
Environment
Confluence with Reverse-proxy
Diagnosis
Browser cache
As a first step, check if this is not a browser cache issue by trying to:
Access Confluence through a different browser that you never used before
If that is not possible, try an incognito window
Or, try to clear all browser caches and cookies
If the issue persists after those tests, proceed with the next diagnostic steps below.
Tomcat configuration
Review the server.xml file, under <confluence_install>/conf directory, we can't see any proxy information, even though we know for a fact that Confluence is running behind a reverse-proxy:
server.xml
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<Connector port="8090" connectionTimeout="20000" redirectPort="8443"
maxThreads="48" minSpareThreads="10"
enableLookups="false" acceptCount="10" debug="0" URIEncoding="UTF-8"
protocol="org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11NioProtocol"/>Cause
The server.xml wasn't configured to run behind a reverse-proxy.
Some parameters are missing - for example, proxyName, proxyPort, or a Context path.
Solution
Stop Confluence
Edit the file <confluence_install>/conf/server.xml
Add the parameters proxyPort and proxyName to the existing connector. Example, when using a Reverse-proxy with SSL offoading:
server.xml
1 2 3 4 5<Connector port="8090" connectionTimeout="20000" redirectPort="8443" maxThreads="48" minSpareThreads="10" enableLookups="false" acceptCount="10" debug="0" URIEncoding="UTF-8" protocol="org.apache.coyote.http11.Http11NioProtocol" scheme="https" secure="true" proxyName="<proxy_host>.<domain>.com" proxyPort="443"/>If the reverse-proxy is set with a context path (e.g. /confluence), ensure to set it accordingly:
server.xml
1 2 3 4 5<Context path="/confluence" docBase="../confluence" debug="0" reloadable="false" useHttpOnly="true"> <!-- Logging configuration for Confluence is specified in confluence/WEB-INF/classes/log4j.properties --> <Manager pathname=""/> <Valve className="org.apache.catalina.valves.StuckThreadDetectionValve" threshold="60"/> </Context>Save the server.xml file
Start Confluence
Additional documentation related to Confluence and proxies:
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