Akeeba Backup for Joomla!

Monday, 11 July 2011 12:03 CDT

user7349

Mandatory information about my setup:

Have I read the related troubleshooter articles above before posting (which pages?)? Yes. Troubleshooting issues after restoring your site...
Have I searched the forum before posting? Yes
Have I read the documentation before posting (which pages?)? Yes. Restoring Backups (page 93)
Joomla! version: 1.5.22 stable
PHP version: 5.2.15
MySQL version: 5.1.12
Host: hostgator.com
Akeeba Backup version: 3.2.6

EXTREMELY IMPORTANT: Please attach your Akeeba Backup log file in order for us to help you with any backup or restoration issue.

Description of my issue:

I've created this site as a subdomain of another completely different site. The intention was to test here and put into production under a new cpanel account. The websites are not entangled (I think). New databases and users were created and now double checked to make sure the tables are all there. The new cpanel does not have a domain pointed to it yet.

When I log in to the backend the text links on the upper left don't work and the icons are missing for some of the back end controls. The front end has no css or template associated with the site now. The new cpanel account is the same host, with the same php and mysql.

I've read that different versions of php could be causing this problem but I don't see how as I'm working with the same version. I've attached the log and an image of the backend. Can you take a look and give me an idea of what went wrong?

Best Regards,

Ben

PS: I'm pm all the access info if you need it.

Monday, 11 July 2011 13:06 CDT

nicholas

Hi! Please try to follow these instructions first. The most common culprits are RewriteBase in .htaccess and/or the live_site parameter in configuration.php. However, I would suggest following all the troubleshooting steps. These steps are the concentrated experience of 5 years worth of supporting users with similar issues. There's a 95% chance that your problem is solved with one of those steps.

If all those steps lead nowhere, the next thing to check is the permissions of the files and directories. Ideally, you should have 0755 for directories and 0644 for files. You can change them very easily using FileZilla.

Finally, please note that until you assign a domain name to your site, images and CSS files may not load properly and -I can personally vouch for that- SEF URLs will not work at all. It's futile trying to make SEF URLs work without a domain name. There's not a cat's chance in hell of succeeding as this is a limitation of Apache.

I hope that helps!

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Monday, 11 July 2011 16:41 CDT

user7349

Hey Nick,

FYI, I tried it all and nothing worked. Then I remembered a component that I installed to test on this site. I removed it and did the migration again. I think it's JOMRES that was causing the issue. Thanks anyway. Love you work!

Ben

Tuesday, 12 July 2011 01:07 CDT

nicholas

I hadn't heard of issues with JomRes before. I'd suggest contacting JomRes' developers and notify them on this issue. Perhaps it is something they can fix on their code. Alternatively, they should be able to tell you if it stores absolute path names and/or URLs so that I can provide instructions for moving sites with JomRes installed, like I do for VirtueMart.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Tuesday, 12 July 2011 09:18 CDT

user7349

To be fair and make sure anyone else searching this forum gets good information, I really removed two components; K2 and Jomres. I also changed the mod rewrite on the global configurations tab to "no". That should represent all the changes made before backing up and migration. Perhaps you can add in any further insight?

Best,

Ben

Tuesday, 12 July 2011 09:33 CDT

nicholas

Since I am using K2 on all of my sites, it can not cause that kind of issues. Regarding the mod_rewrite, it can cause a problem, but it is covered in the link with instructions I gave you, which you said didn't work. So, the only thing left is JomRes.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Tuesday, 12 July 2011 10:28 CDT

user7349

Guess it must be since I never really touched anything else. Unless, simply deactivating the mod_rewrite would do this. I'll contact Vince and ask him about this. I'll also reference this post. Perhaps he'll want to chime in on this topic.

Ben

Tuesday, 12 July 2011 11:01 CDT

nicholas

Yes, please do! Vince is a great guy and we can easily figure out what's wrong and fix it!

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Tuesday, 12 July 2011 11:44 CDT

user7349

Sent out an email to him earlier today referencing the post.

Ben

Tuesday, 12 July 2011 13:07 CDT

jomres

>> they should be able to tell you if it stores absolute path names

I'm probably going to sound defensive, but I doubt it's Jomres, as it doesn't use fixed paths.

We'd really need to see the problem in action before we can guess the cause of the problem (preferably backed up with PHP error logs pertinent to the time it happened, if relevant).

Tuesday, 12 July 2011 13:36 CDT

nicholas

Hi Vince,

Thank you for the clarification! I suspected that much, but I wanted you to give a definitive answer, since you are the best source for offering an insight on the internal workings of your software :)

So far, the most likely culprit seems something odd with .htaccess or an unrelated PHP error which coincidentally went away during the new restoration of the site.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Tuesday, 12 July 2011 13:45 CDT

user7349

Okay. Let's wrap this up. Since the both of you will talk way over my head anyway, I'll give you the files to look over. The configuration.php and htaccess.txt are both attached (less passwords and such). Let me know if you want any other files.

@Vince: I will be using JOMRES with a different client and do have every bit of faith in your product.

Best,

Ben

Tuesday, 12 July 2011 13:51 CDT

user7349

Configuration.php file attached

Tuesday, 12 July 2011 15:39 CDT

nicholas

The configuration.php didn't come through, but I can think of two .htaccess suggestions.

1. Comment out this line:
Options +FollowSymLinks
so that it reads
# Options +FollowSymLinks

2. Maybe you want to uncomment this line:
# RewriteBase /
so that it reads
RewriteBase /

Regarding your configuration.php file, please note that the forum will not accept files with PHP code. Put it in a ZIP file and attach the ZIP file here.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Wednesday, 13 July 2011 05:51 CDT

jomres

an unrelated PHP error which coincidentally went away

Yeah, you've really gotta love them, haven't you?

Wednesday, 13 July 2011 05:53 CDT

nicholas

The story of our lives :D

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Wednesday, 13 July 2011 07:16 CDT

user7349

All I did was remove JOMRES, K2, and changed the mod_rewrite setting on the backend. Everything else about this was straight out of the box. I really didn't hack any files.

This was the third migration attempt. Two with the first backup and the third with the second backup with changes. How does a php error just go away?

Best,

Ben

configuration.php file zipped and attached.

Wednesday, 13 July 2011 07:20 CDT

jomres

We were ruminating idly about the joys of software development, where an issue can arise and disappear for no damned good reason at all. These are probably normally caused by hosts fiddling with a server's settings, but obviously as the problem doesn't re-appear there's no way to prove it.

I'll keep my head out of this conversation now as Nik's suggestions re .htaccess are probably on track.

Wednesday, 13 July 2011 09:32 CDT

nicholas

Yeah, me and Vince were referring to those elusive error messages that are triggered by something so insignificant that the user never notices and we never get to ask. Sometimes, retrying the "exact" same procedure modifies that insignificant something and the problem goes away ;)

In any case, I think I know what the problem is in your case. Take a look at your configuration.php's live_site variable:

http://174.120.106.251/~admin593/.com

You are restoring on a temporary URL. As you can read in our documentation -user's guide, quick start guide, troubleshooting wizard- this is bound to fail. The reason is that, due to a restriction in Apache, you can't use redirections / rewrites with those temporary URLs. By disabling mod_rewrite you disabled redirections, so you didn't bump to this problem any more.

Seriously, that was the problem in your case. No PHP error, no K2 conflict, no JomRes conflict, no nothing in the like. Just Apache who doesn't support redirections and SEF URLs when restoring your site to a temporary URL. As soon as you attach a real domain in there, restore the mod_rewrite line and everything will work properly.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

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