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This documentation page is for Joomla! 3.x

This documentation page does not apply to our software versions for Joomla! 4.0 and later versions. If you are not using Joomla 3 please consult the documentation index to find and read the correct version of the documentation.

Chapter 2. Installation, updates and upgrades

Installing Akeeba Backup

Installing Akeeba Backup is no different than installing any other Joomla!™ extension on your site. You can read the complete instructions for installing Joomla!™ extensions on the official help page. Throughout this chapter we assume that you are familiar with these instructions and we will try not to duplicate them.

Installing or manually updating the extension

Just like with most Joomla! extensions there are three ways to install or manually update Akeeba Backup on your site:

  • Install from URL. This works only with the Professional release of our component. It is the easiest and fastest one, if your server supports it. Most servers do support this method.

  • Upload and install. That's the typical extension installation method for Joomla! extensions. It rarely fails.

  • Manual installation. This is the hardest, but virtually fail-safe, installation method.

Please note that installing and updating Akeeba Backup (and almost all Joomla! extensions) is actually the same thing. If you want to update Akeeba Backup please remember that you MUST NOT uninstall it before installing the new version! When you uninstall Akeeba Backup you will lose all your backup settings and all backup archives stored inside Akeeba Backup's directories (including the default backup output directory). This is definitely something you do not want to happen! Instead, simply install the new version on top of the old one. Joomla! will figure out that you are doing an update and will treat it as such, automatically.

[Tip]Tip

If you find that after installing or updating Akeeba Backup it is missing some features or doesn't work, please try installing the same version a second time, without uninstalling the component. The reason is that very few times the Joomla! extensions installer infrastructure gets confused and fails to copy some files or entire folders. By repeating the installation you force it to copy the missing files and folders, solving the problem.

Install from URL

The easiest way to install Akeeba Backup Professional is using the Install from URL feature in Joomla!.

[Important]Important

This Joomla! feature requires that your server supports fopen() URL wrappers (allow_url_fopen is set to 1 in your server's php.ini file) or has the PHP cURL extension enabled. Moreover, if your server has a firewall, it has to allow TCP connections over ports 80 and 443 to www.akeeba.com and cdn.akeeba.com. If you don't see any updates or if they fail to download please ask your host to check that these conditions are met. If they are met but you still do not see the updates please file a bug report in the official Joomla! forum. In the meantime you can use the manual update methods discussed further below this page.

First, go to our site's download page for Akeeba Backup. Make sure you are logged in. If not, log in now. These instructions won't work if you are not logged in! Click on the All Files button of the version you want to install. Please note that the latest released version is always listed first on the page. On that page you will find both Akeeba Backup Core and Professional. Next to the Professional edition's Download Now button you will see the Direct Install Link link. Right click on it and select Copy link address or whatever your browser calls this.

Now go to your site's administator page and click on Extensions, Manage. Click on the Install from URL tab. Clear the contents of the Install URL field and paste the URL you copied from our site's download page. Then click on the Install button. Joomla! will download and install the Akeeba Backup update.

If Joomla! cannot download the package, please use one of the methods described in this section of the documentation.

Upload and install.

You can download the latest installation packages our site's download page for Akeeba Backup. Please note that the latest version is always on top. If you have an older version of Joomla! or PHP please consult our Compatibility page to find the version of Akeeba Backup compatible with your Joomla! and PHP versions. In either case click on the version you want to download and install.

If you are not a subscriber, click on the Akeeba Backup Core to download the ZIP installation package of the free of charge version.

If you are a subscriber to the Professional release, please make sure that you have logged in first. You should then see an item on this page reading Akeeba Backup Professional. If you do not see it, please log out and log back in. Click on the Professional item to download the ZIP installation package.

All Akeeba Backup installation packages contain the component and all of its associated extensions. Installing it will install all of these items automatically. It can also be used to upgrade Akeeba Backup; just install it without uninstalling the previous release.

In any case, do not extract the ZIP files yet!

[Warning]Warning

Attention Mac OS X users! Safari, the default web server provided to you by Apple, is automatically extracting the ZIP file into a directory and removes the ZIP file. In order to install the extension through Joomla!'s extensions installer you must select that directory, right-click on it and select Compress to get a ZIP file of its contents. This behaviour was changed in Mac OS X Mountain Lion, but people upgrading from older versions of Mac OS X (Mac OS X Lion and earlier) will witness the old, automatic ZIP extraction, behaviour.

Log in to your site's administrator section. Click on Extensions, Manage link on the top menu. Please click on the Upload Package File tab. Drag and drop the installation ZIP file you had previously downloaded to start the upload and the installation. After a short while, Joomla!™ will tell you that the component has been installed.

[Warning]Warning

Akeeba Backup is a big extension (over 2Mb for the Professional release). Some servers do not allow you to upload files that big. If this is the case you can try the Manual installation or ask your host to follow our installation troubleshooting instructions under "You get an error about the package not being uploaded to the server".

If you have WAMPServer (or any other prepackaged local server), please note that its default configuration does not allow files over 2Mb to be uploaded. To work around that you will need to modify your php.ini and restart the server. On WAMPserver left-click on the WAMP icon (the green W), click on PHP, php.ini. Find the line beginning with upload_max_filesize. Change it so that it reads:

upload_max_filesize = 6M

Save this file. Now, left-click on the WAMP icon, click on Apache, Service, Restart Service and you can now install the component. Editing the php.ini file should also work on all other servers, local and live alike.

If the installation did not work, please take a look at our installation troubleshooting instructions or try the manual installation described below.

Manual installation

As of Akeeba Backup 5.0.0 this method can no longer be supported for technical reasons which have to do with the way Joomla! works when installing extensions of the type "package".

[Warning]Warning

DO NOT UNZIP THE PACKAGE AND TRY TO INSTALL THE EXTENSIONS MANUALLY! This will very likely make your site fail with an error. When you are installing the package extension Joomla! makes a few checks to make sure that your server meets the minimum requirements. Moreover, the installation order in the package matters. It is designed to make sure that failure to install one of the included extensions will minimize the chance of a cascading effect which breaks your site.

Troubleshooting the installation

Please note that extensions installation is performed by Joomla itself, not code that we have written ourselves. If you have a problem installing a Joomla extension of ours the root cause is in Joomla! and the way some of its functions work. While we don't offer support for generic installation issues, this page is meant to serve as a collection of the troubleshooting steps we'd follow on any site when any extension doesn't install correctly.

You get an error about the package not being uploaded to the server

The installation packages of our extensions are rather big. Many server have a maximum file upload size or a maximum POST request size which is too small – typically around 2MB – for our software to install. The best solution is to ask your host to set the following in the server's php.ini:

upload_max_filesize = 10M
post_max_size = 10M

On most hosts you can place these lines in a file called .user.ini (not the leading dot) or php.ini in your site's administrator directory.

If this is not possible, there's a good chance that the following lines in your .htaccess file may work on most servers:

php_value upload_max_filesize 10M
php_value post_max_size 10M

There is also another alternative, but it won't work on all hosts: installation by URL. Please go to the Download section of our site and select the software and version you want to download. Click on View All files. Next to the "Download now" button for the installation package you will see a link called "DirectLink". Right click on it and select "Copy link address" (the exact phrase depends on the browser, but it should have to do about copying the link or its address / URL / location).

Now go to your site's back-end, Extensions, Extensions Manager and find the Install from URL tab. Replace the contents of the "Install URL" field with the contents of your clipboard (the DirectLink URL you copied above) and click on the "Install" button next to this textbox. As long as your server supports installing extensions from URL the installation should go through.

If this still doesn't help please read on for further troubleshooting tips

"Install path does not exist"

Joomla! requires the PHP Gzip and ZIP extensions to be installed. If either is not installed or if it's blocked then Joomla! will be unable to install extensions. Unfortunately, a cascade of unhandled errors inside Joomla! itself will cause it to come up with the unhelpful and disorienting "Install path does not exist" error message.

Solution: ask your host to enabled the GZip and ZIP extensions in PHP. Furthermore, ask them to make sure that they are not blocking the functionality of these extensions e.g. by using disable_functions or disable_classes in their php.ini file.

Please note that we routinely see hosts disabling functions zip_open, gzuncompress, gzdeflate and gzdecode for ostensible "security reasons". First of all Joomla! WILL NOT work properly when any of these functions is unavailable. Moreover and despite what your host tells you, disabling this functions does not increase your site's security in any conceivable way. If your host denies to unblock these functions please take your site to a different host that understands how server security really works.

"Unable to write entry" or "Unable to create destination" error

This error message comes from Joomla! and it means that there is a file or directory permissions issue. Unfortunately this message is very non-specific and provides no useful information for troubleshooting. This is something we reported to Joomla in September 2017 and was ostensibly fixed but internal issues in the way the extensions installer work still prevent the correct path from being shown.

In the meantime, all you can do is ask your host to make sure that all folders and files on your site are writeable by the user under which your site runs. This is not something you or us can do. Please do ask your host.

If this doesn't help it might mean that you have reached the file system capacity of your server. Please note that your account on the server might have several limits:

  • Maximum total size of files and database data. This is the most common limit, e.g. your host telling you that you can use 10G of space in total. Please remember that this includes your database data. Moreover, keep in mind that "unlimited" is a marketing term, not reality. Usually you get up to a certain size limit and you have to ask for more, explaining why.

  • Maximum number of files. This is usually NOT advertised, documented or visible anywhere. Many hosts will only allow you up to a maximum number of files, e.g. 100,000. If you try to exceed that count the file is not created / replaced, as if the permissions were not adequate to write to it. Please note that most times the host engineers will call it "inode count" because that's technically what they are limiting on your hosting user account. Each inode is a filesystem index entry and each file and folder on your site consumes one inode (that's not very accurate but it's a well enough description to understand what an inode is).

  • The physical disk size. All the aforementioned limits are great, but you cannot create files beyond the physical capacity of the disks on your server. Most modern hosts use virtualized, network attached storage to provide ever-expanding capacity on demand. However, some cheaper hosts and dedicated servers still have regular disks attached with finite storage limits.

  • The block count. Please remember that computer permanent storage cannot be allocated with a single byte granularity. It is allocated in blocks, typically 4KB to 32KB each. Think of it as an apartment building where everyone gets the same size , four bedroom apartment regardless of whether they are single or a family of seven with a dog and two cats. This means that small files, whose size is nominally under one block, will occupy at least one block. Your host counts the disk space usage by the number of blocks you occupy but hosting control panels report the aggregated nominal sizes of the files. It is possible for the hosting control panel to report free space when you have reached the block limit of your hosting account.

  • Also remember that your hosting control panel does not report the limit information in real time. You may have already exceeded your limits but your control panel not having been updated with this information.

If you are not sure about these limits please ask your host.

Upgrading from Core to Professional

In some cases we have seen that Joomla failed to copy all of the necessary files when upgrading from a Core to a Professional release or when installing a major update that spans major versions (e.g. 1.x to 2.y). If you believe this has happened to you please install our software twice in a row, without uninstalling it before or in between the subsequent installations.

Check your Joomla! and PHP version

We publish the compatibility of our software with Joomla! and PHP versions in the Compatibility page on our site. You can find a link on this page at the bottom of every page of our site.

Please remember that the PHP version your site is using may be different than the PHP version your host reports in their hosting control panel. If unsure, please refer to Joomla's System Information page. If you need to upgrade your PHP version please consult your host. The exact method to do that varies by host.

Checking your temporary directory

First, we will have to make sure that you are using a valid temporary directory. Many sites are configured to use the system-wide (/tmp) directory or an invalid directory, causing installation problems.

You can change your temporary directory from your site's Global Configuration page. You need to enter the full filesystem path to Joomla's tmp folder. This is typically something like /home/mysite/public_html/tmp. If unsure please ask your host. This information is not visible from within your site's administrator using any Joomla-provided feature and there is no way for us to know it.

Enable FTP

On shared hosts which are using PHP as an Apache module you have to enable Joomla!'s FTP layer. Otherwise Joomla! won't be able to write the files to its directories and installation will fail. If you are unsure whether this is the case please ask your host.

If you need to enable the FTP layer here's how to do it:

  1. Go to Site (or System, in Joomla 4), Global Configuration menu item.

  2. Click on the Server tab

  3. Set Enable FTP to Yes

  4. In the FTP Host try using 127.0.0.1 or localhost or the FTP hostname assigned by your host

  5. In the FTP Username and FTP Password fields provide the FTP username and password assigned by your host

  6. In the FTP Root you have to type in the FTP path to your site's root. Here is the easy way to find it using FileZilla:

    Connect to your site using FileZilla. Navigate inside the folder Joomla! is installed in. Usually it's a directory named public_html, htdocs, www or something similar. If unsure don't ask us, ask your host. Now, on the right-hand pane you will find the FTP path. Most likely it will look something like /public_html. Copy this and paste it into the FTP Root text box in your Joomla!'s Global Configuration page.

  7. Save your Global Configuration. If you got everything correctly, you should see a message that your configuration was saved. If you see an error message please seek assistance on the Joomla! Forum.

Still problems?

If you still can't install our software and you are receiving messages regarding unwritable directories, inability to move files or other similar file system related error messages you can ask for our support but you already read what we're going to try. At best you can expect us to find out the most likely root cause and tell you what you have to ask your host to do to fix it.

The installation / update broke my site!

If your installation gets corrupt (e.g. Joomla didn't manage to successfully complete the installation or update of Akeeba Backup) you might find with a broken site. This is not a bug in our software. If critical files are missing or files from different versions are mixed up, any software will malfunction.

If you have access to your site's backend try to install the latest Akeeba Backup version's ZIP file twice in a row, without uninstalling the existing version before or in between.

Otherwise, use your FTP client to remove the following directories (some of them may not be present on your site; this is normal):

administrator/component/com_akeeba
component/com_akeeba
media/com_akeeba
plugins/quickicon/akeebabackup
plugins/actionlog/akeebabackup
plugins/system/backuponupdate

This will do the trick! You will now be able to access your site's administrator page again and retry installing Akeeba Backup without uninstalling it first. Remember, uninstalling Akeeba Backup will remove your settings and your backups; you do not want that to happen!

[Note]Note

If you get a username and password dialog from your browser (not Joomla!) OR a server error when you access your site's backend (administrator) URL, try deleting the .htaccess and .htpasswd files inside your site's administrator folder.

In some cases Joomla! forgets to install files for the FOF 4 library used by most of our components (Akeeba Backup, Admin Tools, Akeeba Ticket System and others). This could mean that even removing the directories above you could still be unable to access your site. If this happens, try the following solution:

  1. Delete the folder libraries/fof40 from your site. ATTENTION! Do NOT remove the libraries/fof folder, it's something entirely different and you will break your site if you remove that folder instead!

  2. Go to our Download page and download the latest version of FOF 4. This downloads a file named something like lib_fof40-1.2.3.zip on your computer.

  3. Extract (unzip) the file you downloaded. You see a fof directory being extracted.

  4. Rename to fof directory to fof40

  5. Upload the fof40 directory into your site's libraries directory.

  6. You now have a libraries/fof40 directory and you can log in to your site's backend.

  7. Reinstall our extension twice in a row