Summary

When changing the Base URL or an application link URL,  either due to a URL change or from an export/import (e.g. Cloud to Server or Server to Server), links created as absolute links to the old URL (for example, using Insert > Link > Web Link) need to be manually changed.

Example Server to Server

Example Cloud to Server (this requires extra steps)

Example Jira to Confluence 

this KB may be used in other types of URL changes, make sure you test this before on a test instance if using this procedure on cases not described here.

What about relative links?

If a link was created as a relative link (for example, by using Edit > Insert > Link, then from "Recently Viewed" or "Search"), it will change when the base URL changes. 

This document has more details: Working with Links.

Environment

Confluence Server or Data Center

Solution

Option 1: Export/Import Option using Find and Replace

This option outlines how to export your Confluence data and perform a find/replace leveraging the sed script notated below to update the link values. 

sed -r -e 's/oldvalue/newvalue/g' <export-file-name>

Get-Content ./<export-file-name> | foreach{$_ -replace 'oldvalue','newvalue'}

sed -r -e 's/mycompany.com\/confluence/confluence.mycompany.com/g' entities.xml > entities_new.xml

Get-Content ./entities.xml | foreach{$_ -replace 'mycompany.com/confluence','confluence.mycompany.com'} | Out-File -path entities_new.xml

Option 2: WebDAV option

Use the WebDAV plugin and mount the WebDAV location locally, then run a script that uses sed to replace all of the Old Base URLs. This option creates a new page version for all pages that are changed (this includes any page versions that are crawled and edited).

Option 3: Confluence Source Editor option

You can use the Confluence Source Editor app to modify content on a page-by-page basis.

1. Install the Confluence Source Editor app.
2. Open the editor on an affected page.
3. Click the <> button on the top right of the editor.
4. Replace any occurrences of the old base URL with the new base URL.
5. Save the page.

This technique has the benefit of being less risky than doing direct data manipulation and it's easier than manually linking the attachment through the editor interface. 

Option 4: Database query

Confluence stores page content in plain text, on the 'BODYCONTENT' table. It's also possible to replace these links by replacing text on this table, with the following queries:

Starting from Confluence 7 (skip this step for older versions) we will need to set the flag on drafts to use content from pages when generating drafts instead of using Synchrony cache.

update CONTENTPROPERTIES set stringval='synchrony-recovery' where propertyname = 'sync-rev-source' and contentid in (select contentid from BODYCONTENT WHERE body LIKE '%old-URL%');

Replacing the links for all page versions (Compatible with PostgreSQL, Oracle, MySQL)

UPDATE BODYCONTENT 
SET body = replace(body,'old-URL','new-URL') 
WHERE body LIKE '%old-URL%';

# Assuming that the HTTP protocol remains the same, specify the URL without a reference to the protocol. For example:
UPDATE LINKS 
SET destpagetitle = replace(destpagetitle,'//the.old-URL.com','//my.new-URL.com') 
WHERE destpagetitle LIKE '%//the.old-URL.com%';
UPDATE LINKS 
SET lowerdestpagetitle = replace(lowerdestpagetitle,'//the.old-url.com','//my.new-url.com') 
WHERE lowerdestpagetitle LIKE '%//the.old-url.com%';

# Make sure to set the URL in the last SQL query to lowercase

Replacing the links for all page versions (Compatible with SQL Server 2017 - Microsoft Docs - ntext, text, and image (Transact-SQL))

UPDATE BODYCONTENT
   SET BODY = REPLACE (CONVERT(VARCHAR(MAX), BODY), 'old-URL','new-URL')
 WHERE BODY LIKE '%old-URL%';

Extra: Replacing the links for the latest versions of pages from active spaces (Compatible with PostgreSQL)

UPDATE BODYCONTENT
SET BODY = REPLACE (BODY,'old-URL','new-URL')
WHERE BODYCONTENTID IN (SELECT bc.BODYCONTENTID
                        FROM BODYCONTENT bc
                        INNER JOIN CONTENT c ON c.CONTENTID = bc.CONTENTID
                        INNER JOIN SPACES s ON s.SPACEID = c.SPACEID
                        WHERE bc.BODY LIKE '%old-URL%'
                          AND c.PREVVER is NULL
                          AND c.CONTENTTYPE ='PAGE'
                          AND c.CONTENT_STATUS = 'current'
                          AND s.SPACESTATUS = 'CURRENT');

This will replace all instances of 'old-URL' on pages, with the text from 'new-URL', automatically replacing the links on Confluence pages.

•  Restart Confluence or flush the cache in General Configuration → Cache Management to have these changes be reflected in the UI.

 Try this on a test Confluence instance beforehand, and backup the Confluence database first