Page shows title as "$helper.page.title" and cannot be edited/moved

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

Problem

A page shows "$helper.page.title" in its title and cannot be edited or moved.

(Auto-migrated image: description temporarily unavailable)

Trying to edit the page will return an HTTP 500 ("Oops - an error has occurred" message):

(Auto-migrated image: description temporarily unavailable)

The following appears in the atlassian-confluence.log

1 2 3 4 2017-08-14 18:18:19,509 ERROR [http-nio-8090-exec-2] [atlassian.confluence.servlet.ConfluenceServletDispatcher] sendError Could not execute action -- url: /wiki/plugins/editor-loader/editor.action | traceId: 0ed2d3b7c9971be5 | userName: sstarling | referer: https://confluence.mydomain.com/wiki/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=3211326 java.lang.NullPointerException at com.atlassian.confluence.pages.actions.AbstractCreateAndEditPageAction.setTitle(AbstractCreateAndEditPageAction.java:475)

Trying to reorder the pages within the space will fail silently. The following appears in the atlassian-confluence.log

1 2 3 4 2017-08-16 18:31:18,802 ERROR [http-nio-8090-exec-6] [atlassian.confluence.servlet.ConfluenceServletDispatcher] sendError Could not execute action -- referer: https://confluence.mydomain.com/wiki/pages/reorderpages.action?key=CC | url: /wiki/pages/movepage.action | traceId: 4cfc28ef6b53674e | userName: sysadmin java.lang.NullPointerException at com.atlassian.confluence.core.ContentEntityObject.compareTo(ContentEntityObject.java:555)

Cause

The respective row in the CONTENT table contains null values in the title and lowertitle columns.

Resolution

1. Get the page ID from URL. For this example, let's say that the page ID is 1741037.

2. Run the following query to check how is the page in 'content' table:

1 SELECT * FROM CONTENT WHERE CONTENTID = '1741037';

3. Check if the title and lowertitle columns show as NULL.

4. Stop Confluence

5. Run the following queries to update both columns with some valid strings:

1 2 3 UPDATE CONTENT SET TITLE = 'mytitle' WHERE CONTENTID = '1741037'; UPDATE CONTENT SET LOWERTITLE = 'mytitle' WHERE CONTENTID = '1741037';

6. Restart Confluence

7. Rebuild the search index

8. Go to the page through Confluence UI and change the title to your preference.

Updated on April 11, 2025

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