During startup I do get the following error:
2009-08-31 17:33:58,680 ERROR [main] [atlassian.config.db.DatabaseHelper] setDatabaseLowerProperty Connection was null. We could not successfully connect to the specified database!
2009-08-31 17:34:02,670 FATAL [main] [atlassian.config.lifecycle.LifecycleManager] panicAndShutdown Unable to start up Confluence. Fatal error during startup sequence: confluence.lifecycle.core:dblowercheck (Check to ensure the database correctly supports lower() for non-ASCII characters) - java.lang.OutOfMemoryError: Java heap space

Does it have to do that 8.4 works differently in the lower() action??

at least if I log into the db with the confluence user I can preform:

workconfluence=> select lower('ÄÜÖ');
lower
-------
äüö
(1 row)

Could it be related to http://jira.atlassian.com/browse/CONF-1570 ?