Content not Synching remotely: com.atlassian.confluence.rpc.RemoteException: Error decoding XML-RPC

[gordon bradley]

We're publishing content remotely and it's not updating/synching.

The error message is:

Remote publishing failed!
com.atlassian.confluence.rpc.RemoteException: Error decoding XML-RPC response

• I have looked at everything obvious including hidden formatting, possibly illegal characters, and I've read previous questions about this--the pages have nothing obvious in common.
• There are no macros in use on these pages.
• There are no at mentions @ referencing people no longer here.

1) Does anyone have any ideas for things to try besides copying/pasting it into a Word file/another Confluence page and painstakingly re-adding things to the page until it chokes on it?

2) Is there a way to see the source code of a page to see if I am getting unintentionally inserted characters [i.e., hidden formatting] from my source--such as forced returns, unrecognized ASCII/Unicode characters, etc.?

Thanks in advance!

[gordon bradley · Accepted solution]

Solved my own problem, but Confluence is some SERIOUS lamesauce/weaksauce! :-( 

[I've used Confluence more than anyone in my 150+ person office as I am migrating several thousand-page docs, and I have stubbed my toes so many times on stupid usability issues, bugs, totally non-evident workflows, features which should work that don't, etc. Confluence: CONTACT ME. I will be your most valuable QA tester. I have found every. single. bug in your wretched pos software one by one.]

Through making a new page I got the following notification, which showed me that what looked like a simple italicized text character was 3 characters of math markup from another doc. Workaround is paste into .txt doc, empty Confluence page, and rebuild page in its entirety.

It is INCONCEIVABLE that this prevents a page from publishing--you can't offer some nice "unrendered character" markers or something?

screen capture below: