Page Copy Operation Fails when Clicking "Save"

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

When copying a page, at the point where you click "Save" the page either does not load or displays a System Error.

The following appears in the atlassian-confluence.log:

1 2 3 2012-10-21 12:37:32,738 ERROR [http-10432-10] [atlassian.confluence.servlet.ConfluenceServletDispatcher] sendError Could not execute action -- url: /pages/docopypage.action | userName: admin | referer: http://<BASE_URL>/pages/copypage.action?idOfPageToCopy=327685&spaceKey=TEST java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Source dir <CONFLUENCE_HOME>/attachments/ver003/nonspaced/201/77/327701/589830does not exist

Cause

Sometimes pages can reference the directory where a draft attachment once existed. If that directory no longer exists, then this error happens. I've been able to reproduce this once in my own testing, however after that I wasn't able to produce it, so I suspect this is an intermittent condition. The bug is currently being tracked at CONFSERVER-27778 - Page creation or copying failed when there is an attachment draft directory that does not exist (fixed in 5.2.5)

Workaround

Create the missing directory tree. For example on a UNIX-based system to work around the example error:

1 mkdir -p <CONFLUENCE_HOME>/attachments/ver003/nonspaced/201/77/327701/589830
Updated on April 11, 2025

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