How to disable upgrade recovery file generation in Confluence
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 creates a recovery file when upgrading. It's used to roll back if the upgrade fails, but this functionality can be disabled if not needed.
Solution
Why would I want to disable the recovery file?
Generating this file can take a long time on larger sites. However, if you have a robust process for backing up your database and verifying the backup before performing an upgrade, you can safely turn it off.
If you disable the upgrade recovery file and your upgrade fails you will need to rely solely on your database and file system backups to recover from the problem.
To disable the upgrade recovery file
Stop Confluence.
Set the
confluence.upgrade.recovery.file.enabledfalse:1-Dconfluence.upgrade.recovery.file.enabled=false⚠️ The way you do this will depend on how you run Confluence. See Configuring System Properties to find out how to set system properties in your environment.
Restart Confluence.
If you're running Confluence in a cluster, you can make this change to each node in turn, you don't need to stop all nodes at once.
Remember that this property must be set before you begin the upgrade. If you upgrade Confluence manually, that means updating this property in the setenv.sh or setenv.bat file in the install directory of the version you are upgrading to, not just your current install directory.
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