To create the Global Description content manually, you need to run this in your own database:

select * from content where contenttype = 'GLOBALDESCRIPTION';

If it returns an empty set, run an insert statement like the following:

insert into content(contentid, contenttype, version, creationdate, lastmoddate, content_status)  values (999999, 'GLOBALDESCRIPTION', 1, '2009-01-01 00:00:00', '2009-01-01 00:00:00', 'current');

Where 999999 is a unique content id in your database, set it to any number high enough to be unique.

Several of the support tickets raised have been attributed to improper upgrade procedures. Make sure you're following http://confluence.atlassian.com/display/DOC/Upgrading+Confluence.

One specific cause is setting up a working upgraded install and then substituting a db from an older version. In this case the upgrade job will not kick in and Confluence may throw this error. Notice the note on the upgrade page:

Confluence runs the upgrade task based on a comparison between build numbers in the confluence-install directory and the confluence.cfg.xml file in the confluence-home directory. The database does not know its own version. Therefore, you cannot restore an sql dump from an old version after the upgrade task has run.

If this is the case, you're better off re-running the upgrade task properly than you are patching the issue with SQL or a vm file. Leaving the database in an not-upgraded state can be problematic for other reasons.

Stuart, please raise a support case at https://support.atlassian.com and we'll try to help you out with this.

This issue seems to only partially be fixed in 2.10. The Logo isn't breaking pages anymore but when I try to change the logo I get:

java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Content entity object should not be null
	at org.springframework.util.Assert.notNull(Assert.java:112)
	at com.atlassian.confluence.pages.persistence.dao.hibernate.AbstractHibernateAttachmentDao.getLatestVersionsOfAttachments(AbstractHibernateAttachmentDao.java:78)
	at com.atlassian.confluence.pages.DefaultAttachmentManager.getLatestVersionsOfAttachments(DefaultAttachmentManager.java:63)
	at com.atlassian.confluence.pages.AbstractAttachmentManager.getAttachment(AbstractAttachmentManager.java:51)
	at com.atlassian.confluence.pages.AbstractAttachmentManager.getAttachment(AbstractAttachmentManager.java:32)
	at com.atlassian.confluence.pages.DelegatorAttachmentManager.getAttachment(DelegatorAttachmentManager.java:83)
	at sun.reflect.GeneratedMethodAccessor420.invoke(Unknown Source)
	at sun.reflect.DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.invoke(DelegatingMethodAccessorImpl.java:25)
	at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:597)

Back to Fix Version 2.10. I read the changesets wrong - sorry.

Corrected the 'Fix Version'. This isn't actually in 2.10 - it's in the 3.0 trunk branch.

If you're having this issue after an upgrade, it means your upgrade failed and will need to be manually corrected.

Please raise a support case at https://support.atlassian.com, and include a link to this issue.

Support team: to fix this problem manually, you will need to either patch the macros.vm file as done in this fix, or manually create a global description object via SQL.

I get the same error trying to upgrade from 2.8.2 to 2.9.2 (Oracle 10g).

2008-11-19 16:02:27,015 INFO [main] [com.atlassian.confluence.lifecycle] init Confluence is ready to serve
2008-11-19 16:02:53,924 ERROR [http-8888-1] [confluence.util.velocity.VelocityUtils] getRenderedTemplate Error occurred rendering template: /decorators/main.vmd
 -- url: /c/dashboard.action | userName: anonymous
org.apache.velocity.exception.MethodInvocationException: 
Invocation of method 'getAttachment' in  class $Proxy18 threw exception java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: Content entity object @ /decor
ators/main.vmd[3,33]
        at org.apache.velocity.runtime.parser.node.ASTMethod.execute(ASTMethod.java:286)

Skipping technical review. Anatoli isn't in today, and this is just a minor change. We need to get it closed off before the next milestone release.

Anatoli, do you have any ideas on how we could test this?