Manually resetting theme settings

This document explains how to manually reset theme configuration settings...

There may be times when theme config has become so roasted (our technical term for "death by over-zealous theme customisaiton") by a change that you just want to wipe it out and start again, however since the config is roasted you cant actually access the menu options to get there!

Resetting the theme from a web browser

To reset the theme via a web browser you need to be logged in as an administrator of the space or, if resetting the global theme, as a site administrator.

In most cases it's worth retrieving a backup of the current theme configuration so that you have a copy of your settings which can then be edited to fix them. To do this, modify the following URL so it's pointing to the correct server and replace XXXXX with the Key

of the space which you want to backup:

http://www.mysite.com/plugins/sitebuilder/backuptheme.acton?key=XXXXX

If your browser attempts to open the file in Adobe Acrobat Reader, tell it not to! Simply save the file to disk for later.

Once the theme config is safely stored on your computer, you can then proceed to reset the theme back to it's default settings:

http://www.mysite.com/themes/sitebuilder/doresettheme.action?key=XXXXXX

Once you have reset your theme configuration you can open the theme backup file in a text editor, remove the offending piece of configuration and upload the settings to the server.

Resetting the theme from file file system

To reset the theme via the file system, you'll need sufficient access rights to read, write and delete files in the disk space where the Confluence configuration files are stored. From Confluence 2.3 onwards, it is likely that these settings will be moved in to the database - we'll provide details on resetting theme config in the database at a later date.

Navigate to the "config" folder within your Confluence installation directory.

If backing up or resetting the global Builder theme settings, you'll see a file called builder-space.xml - take a copy and then delete it to reset the global Builder theme settings.

If backing up or resetting Builder theme settings for a specific space, go in to the folder named as that spaces' key. For example, if your space Key is "fish", there will be a folder called fish. User spaces are in folder names which start with a tilde "~", eg. ~admin. Once in the folder, you'll see the builder-space.xml file - take a copy then delete it.

Obviously, you can just edit the XML file directly from disk to remove the offending piece of theme configuration.

Do not upload that XML file via the web interface - it's a different format to the theme backups that are downloaded via the web interface.