Error Removing Attachments if Attachments Folder Is a Symbolic Link

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

Symptoms

Despite no visible error in Confluence, removing an attachment results in the following error in atlassian-confluence.log:

1 2 2009-07-09 15:48:07,932 ERROR [TP-Processor34] [pages.persistence.dao.FileSystemAttachmentDataDao] removeDataForAttachment Error removing the attachments folder for the page with id: 9177303 folder: /local/mnt/confluence/attachments/9177303/10355140 Not writable

Filesystem permissions are configured correctly.

Cause

The attachments folder in <confluence-home-directory> is a symbolic link (symlink).

Resolution

Remove the symbolic link and move back the real attachments directory to <confluence-home-directory>/attachments. See Confluence Home and other important directories.

Updated on April 8, 2025

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