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How to avoid the Joomla 2.5 upgrade blues
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Joomla 2.5 was launched just last week, but a security release has already been announced. Yep we’re up to 2.5.1 now and so if you have been holding off upgrading, now is the time to take the plunge. Thanks to our Joomla forum regulars, we have seen a few common issues reported. The following advice will ensure your upgrade is smooth sailing. These instructions assume your site is currently running version 1.6 or 1.7. Do not attempt to do this if your site is running Joomla 1.0 or 1.5.
Before Upgrading
Backup your site. Always, always, always backup using Akeeba Backup.
Start by visiting the developer sites for each of your extensions to ensure that they are compatible with 2.5. Download and upgrade extensions where necessary.
If you are using an extension that is not yet compatible with 2.5, you should instead manually upgrade to Joomla 1.7.5. Download the relevant package here, extract the files, and upload them to your site, overwriting any existing files.
How to upgrade
You can use the Update function within Administrator. Watch last week’s video on What’s New in Joomla 2.5 for a quick demonstration of this function. It is a good idea to place the site in Offline Mode during the upgrade.
After Upgrading
One of the new features in 2.5 is there are two new quick icons. When your upgrade is finished, your initial control panel page might display all the quick icons in a single vertical list. Fix this by refreshing the page (F5 key on your keyboard). If that doesn’t work, try clearing your browser cache.
There are new user features and you may have to perform an extra step to get this working. Go to Extensions – Extension Manager – Database. Click the Fix button towards the top right.
What if it all goes wrong?
You did make a backup didn’t you? If your site is so broken you can’t use it, you’ll need to restore using your backup and investigate further.
With one of my sites, as soon as I started the upgrade, the site went blank and I couldn’t access the frontend or Administrator. Instead of reverting to my backup, I manually upgraded instead. As soon as the new files were uploaded, the site worked. To do this, download the 1.7 to 2.5.1 upgrade package here. Extract the files and upload them to your site, overwriting the existing files.
If you have any questions, feel free to drop a post in our Forum or the official Joomla Forum. Joomla Pro customers should post in our priority forum for fastest response. Everyone else is welcome to post in the General forum which is monitored by our community.
Comments
Sloppy? Perhaps - you'd have to talk to a security expert. I guess I see it as keeping on top of things. The nature of software is that it is incredibly complex and new vulnerabilities pop-up all the time.
With all the trouble I have been having migrating and updating I am having second thoughts on my excitement when the Joomla team announced it would be sticking to a scheduled upgrade system. I would rather have a finished product than a hap hazard, incomplete concept!
Thank you for this. You do not say what to do if you are NOT running 1.6 or 1.7 (You say: Do not attempt to do this if your site is running Joomla 1.0 or 1.5.). But you do not say what to do if upgrading from (in my case) 1.5.25. I am considering moving up to 2.5 (once there are a few more fixes released). Do I have to first install 1.7.5?
That's way beyond the scope of this post. Upgrading from 1.7 to 2.5 is relatively easy. But due to the changes introduced in 1.6, an upgrade from 1.5 is not easy. You need to do more research, but in brief, you will need to upgrade the template, extensions and do a lot of testing. For simple sites, it might be more practical to build a new site. No question - this is probably the most annoying thing to happen to Joomla. But most feel that this is outweighed by the extra features. The good news is that future upgrades are much less painful. But the initial step away from 1.5 can be a lot of work.
I am on board with Richard here, do yourself a favor and just build a fresh new site and bring your content in that way. The biggest change with nested categories makes your time spent doing it that way rather than a migration much more beneficial.
I was under the impression that the upgrade from 1.7 to 2.5 was going to be painless. It turns out that the changes made forced me to upgrade almost every extension and template to get it right. Anyone looking to this for advice, make sure to check with your template and extension developers to ensure that your extensions will work with the version you are moving to prior to moving forward.
Really though this migration from 1.5 up was less painful (at least for me) that it was moving from 1.0 to 1.5.
This news fills me with dread. I've inherited Admin duties on our website which my system info tells me is using Joomla 1.5.8. I'm self taught and much more comfortable using Expression Web to maintain another website I administer.
When you say upgrading from 1.5 is a lot of work and that it may be easier to build a new site, what do you classify as a 'simple site'?
Geoff - before even contemplating this, you need to immediately upgrade your site to the latest version in this series which is 1.5.25. Without doing this, the current site is vulnerable to being hacked.
1. Backup the site.
2. Download the 1.5.0 to 1.5.25 package from http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomla/frs/?action=FrsReleaseBrowse&frs_package_id=6159
3. Extract the contents of the zip file and upload these to your site, overwriting any existing files
4. Test that everything is okay.
5. Head over to our forum to discuss your specific situation. Someone will take a look at your site and advise further.
I started my Joomla journey by inheriting a site. It's a steep learning curve which is why I produced our free course called The Basics. This helps you get up to speed pretty quickly.
As a systems developer myself - I am right now busy with a cut-over from an Enterprise system to a local developed system - there are always little glitches lurking in the dark - in my 25+ years in systems development, with a new system, it was never plain sailing.
On the very first day when 2.5 was released I exerienced issues with the install thereof, albeit on my local desktop. My though too was to wait for a later more stable release which may have its pro's and cons.
My suggestion is to take your J1.5.x site to your local desktop, try the upgrade there until satisfied everything is working properly; then upgrade the live website - after a sure and tested backup.
As for the training videos, I can vouch for it; it is more worth the money you'll spend. As an intermediate developer believe me, I still scan some of the videos for a quick "How to".
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a security release... already...?? bit sloppy or not?