Resolve page move error due to duplicate draft titles in Confluence DC
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
Learn how to resolve issues when moving pages with duplicate draft titles in Confluence Data Center version 9.2.2.
Diagnosis
Identify the affected page
Create two spaces, 'Source' and 'Target'.
Create a page called (Page Target) and create a child page (Child Page) under this page in the Target space.
Then, using a non-admin user, create a page called (Page Source) in Source space. Under Page Source, create a page called 'Child Page', but do not publish this child page.
This creates a Draft page called 'Child Page' in space 'Source' space.
Now, if any admin or other user tries moving 'Page Source' from Source space to 'Target' space, they will get 'The page 'Child Page' already exists in space 'Source'. You need to rename the page title before moving it'.
When an admin or any other user tries searching for this child page in the source space, they will not be able to see the page in the source space due to the suggestion:
This can confuse the user, who is unaware of the draft page created when they are trying to move the Page Source.
In the DB, the Source space will have a record like the one below in the content table for page 'Child Page' with a content status of 'draft'.
Since the draft page will not be visible in the UI, the user can't change its page title and hence will not be able to move the parent page 'Page Source' to the Target space.
"contentid","hibernateversion","contenttype","title","lowertitle","version","creator","creationdate","lastmodifier","lastmoddate","versioncomment","prevver","content_status","pageid","spaceid","child_position","parentid","messageid","pluginkey","pluginver","parentccid","draftpageid","draftspacekey","drafttype","draftpageversion","parentcommentid","username"
7602198 4 PAGE Child Page child page 1 402880009526079b01952608ed38000a 2025-05-12 13:18:47.311 402880009526079b01952608ed38000a 2025-05-12 16:08:25.691 draft 131083 2424856
Cause
A draft page, which is not visible in the UI, prevents the user from changing its page title. Hence, the user will not be able to move the parent page 'Page Source' to the Target space.
Solution
Rename the draft page
First, run the following query to check the status of the page title mentioned in the error message.
select * from content where title = 'Child Page' and spaceid = (select spaceid from spaces s where lowerspacekey='<space_key>');
Replace "Child Page" and the space key with your specific page name and space key.
Check if the page status is "DRAFT."
If the page is a draft, use the following SQL query to find the creator's username.
select um.* from user_mapping um join content c on um.user_key = c.creator where c.title = '<page_title>' and c.content_status = 'draft' and c.spaceid = (select spaceid from spaces s where lowerspacekey='<space_key>');;
After obtaining the user details, instruct the user to go to Profile > Drafts Tab to either rename or delete the draft page.
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