How to avoid missing exportDescriptor error during backup import in Confluence Cloud?

[internetyev2]

I am trying to restore Confluence backup and receiving an error "Could not locate exportDescriptor.properties in Media Services". 

Can someone advise on a fix or a workaround?

The backup was done from Confluence Cloud in 09-2017, and I am trying to restore it on Confluence Cloud. Size of the backup is small and within limits.   

[Shannon S]

Andrei,

At any point, did you unzip the backup and zip it again using your OS?

If so, it could have caused a problem with the zip. You should re-zip using your command line.

For example:

zip -r archive.zip entities.xml exportDescriptor.properties attachment/ 

The -r will exclude any hidden files.

Let me know if you have any questions!

Shannon

[internetyev2]

Unfortunately, this solution did not work. The command also includes aux files on MacOs. After I deleted them manually from archive, the Confluence gave me a different error: 

Only Confluence space exports can be imported.

[internetyev2]

Update: the issue still persists after I re-zipped the file with the terminal.

The issue that was causing the error "Only Confluence space exports can be imported" was that I had to put all zipped files inside a folder, rather than root folder of the zip archive. After I zipped the whole folder, and deleted the aux MacOS's ".DS_Store" files, I received the same error I had initially: "Could not locate exportDescriptor.properties in Media Services".

Can you or someone help? should there be 2 exportDescriptor files, eg. in Attachments folder? Puzzled.

[Shannon S]

Andrei,

There should not be 2 exportDescriptor files.

This needs a support ticket so they can look at what happened to your backup, but I see you already reported one.

I will leave that thread open so Suren can help you there.

Feel free to update us here once you're able to fix your file with how you corrected it, but I think in the first place zipping it on the macOS is what caused the issue. We just need to undo it.

Keep us updated!

Regards,

Shannon

[Shannon S]

Andrei,

I spoke with another colleague since Suren was away from his desk at the moment.

We had a look at the file on your support ticket, and it appears that you created a Full Site backup. This can only be restored on Cloud instances that have only Confluence. If you need to restore to an instance which has both Jira and Confluence, then you need to restore space-by-space.

My colleague Manu mentioned this on your support ticket, but you can workaround this by creating an Evaluation Cloud instance which only has Confluence. Restore the backup to that, and then extract your individual spaces as Space XML exports, and restore those to your target instance.

If you have any trouble please let us know!

Kind regards,

Shannon

[internetyev2]

Shannon, et al.,

The import site function actually fixed the issue, but only after I spent about an hour deleting all the aux files that were in the archive.

I.e., my backup file contained the folder names, such as:

drwxr-xr-x 3.0 unx 0 bx stor 17-Sep-19 21:18 attachments/32811/
drwxr-xr-x 3.0 unx 0 bx stor 17-Sep-19 21:18 attachments/32811/32867/

I went ahead and deleted all these files manually via terminal's zip utility, eg.:

zip -d confluence-export.zip attachments/32811 attachments/32811/32867

The import function finally worked!

I'd appreciate if you can show me a less time-consuming way to re-create the backup file that will not include these aux files on MacOS.

[Shannon S]

Andrei,

Those files are only added if you zip using the UI instead of Terminal. Is there a reason you need to re-create the original backup? 

I can confirm the following does NOT include any hidden files from the macOS:

1. Download the site backup from the Cloud site. macOS then automatically unzips the file in Finder.
2. Go into Terminal, and navigate into the Confluence-export folder that was automatically created.

3. zip -r Archive.zip attachments/ entities.xml exportDescriptor.properties plugin-data/

4. This creates a file called Archive.zip that includes all the necessary files and none of the hidden files.
5. I was able to successfully import this into Confluence Cloud as a full site export.

Now, if your export had the hidden files included even after you ran the command in #3, then it means that the hidden files were already there before you tried to use the command. So for example:

1. Upon downloading the site backup, macOS automatically unzips the file.
2. You attempt to zip it using the GUI.
3. You then unzip this newly created zip.
4. The files then will have the hidden files in that, and even if you attempt to zip it properly using Terminal, they are included.

The fact that your file included two exportDescriptor properties files means that something went wrong with the backup. This shouldn't have occurred when the backup was created on the Cloud instance, so it is likely something corrupted it while it was on your machine.

I'm glad you were able to fix all the issues with it. Going forward, make sure that if you need to zip the files again, you do so using the above command and you shouldn't run into any issues.

Regards,

Shannon