Reorder pages not persistent
Platform Notice: Data Center Only - This article only applies to Atlassian apps 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
When going to Space Tools > Reorder Pages and performing any change in the page ordering, it looks like it has been reordered successfully. However, once the page is refreshed or if you navigate back to the space home, the page tree still shows the previous ordering. The issue does occur by either dragging and dropping the pages or by using the "A-Z" button to sort the pages alphabetically.
HAR file shows a "HTTP 403 - Forbidden" error:
{
"errorMessage": "You are not permitted to perform this operation."
}Cause
When a user tries to reorder a page tree and doesn't have the proper permissions in one or more child pages to do so (that means, there is an "Edit page" restriction somewhere in the child pages), the action will fail silently - Confluence UI will reorder the page tree within the "Reorder pages" tab and won't show any type of error or warning message.
The following suggestion is to improve this behavior:
Resolution
Before assuming this is a permissions issue elsewhere in the page tree, first check whether you personally have Edit permission on every page in the tree being reordered (not just the parent) — an Edit restriction on any single child page anywhere in the branch will silently block the whole reorder operation.
Log in as a user from the "confluence-administrators" group and then try to reorder the page tree. Please refer to Confluence Admin Permission Levels Explained to understand the different admin types.
Verification
After reordering as a user from the confluence-administrators group, refresh the page and confirm the new order persists before handing editing rights back to the original non-admin user, to confirm the fix actually took effect rather than being a caching artifact.
If reordering succeeds but still doesn't persist even as an administrator, that points to a different root cause (e.g. a caching or database issue rather than permissions) and is not covered by this article's resolution.
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