DocumentationExperience Cloud KCS

AEM Cloud Manager deployment fails due to Oak index version conflict

Last update: October 27, 2026

Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) Cloud Manager deployment may fail during re-indexing when a new custom Oak index has a lower major version than an existing index. To resolve the issue, merge the changes into the latest higher-version index, create an index definition with an incremented version, and redeploy.

Description description

Environment

Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) Cloud Manager (all versions)

Issue/Symptoms

  • Cloud Manager deployment fails during the re-indexing step after modifying or adding a new attribute to a custom Oak index.
  • Deployment logs show a version conflict between custom indexes.
  • The following error appears: Failed to compare indexes: Cannot add a new customized index because an index with a higher major version already exists. As higher major versions take precedence, the new customized index will not be used. In order to resolve the problem, the new customized index needs to be merged with the latest index and renamed so that it has a higher version number than the latest index.
  • Deployment fails with no specific error in the logs other than the index version conflict.

Root cause

The deployment fails because a new custom Oak index has a lower major version than an existing index. Oak index versioning requires that only the highest version is active. Lower versions are ignored, which can block deployment if the indexes aren’t merged and versioned correctly.

Resolution resolution

Follow the steps below to resolve the issue:

  1. Review the deployment logs to identify the specific custom Oak index names and version numbers mentioned in the error messages.
  2. Merge the changes from the lower-version custom index into the latest higher-version index.
  3. After merging the changes, create a new index definition with an incremented version number.
  4. Ensure that the updated index definition with the new version is included in the deployment package. Remove or archive obsolete lower-version indexes if they’re no longer needed.
  5. Trigger a new deployment in Cloud Manager and verify that the re-indexing step completes successfully.
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