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Site Restoration

#42538 Unable to load Kickstart 9.0.1

Posted in ‘Site restoration’
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Environment Information

PHP version
8.3.28
CMS Type
Joomla!
CMS Version
n/a
Backup Tool Version
n/a
Kickstart version
9.0.1

Latest post by linets on Tuesday, 16 December 2025 04:44 CST

Friday, 12 December 2025 09:22 CST

linets

Hi. I'm trying to test a local restore using the new version of Kickstart (9.0.1).

My browser tab displays the following message when I open the renamed kickstart.php file:

"Akeeba Kickstart CLI 9.0.1 Copyright (c) 2008-2025 Akeeba Ltd / Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Akeeba Kickstart is Free Software, distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 3 or, at your option, any later version. This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY as per sections 15 & 16 of the license. See http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html for details. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Usage: archive.jpa [output_path] [--password=yourPassword] [--silent] [--permissions] [--dry-run] [--ignore-errors] [--delete-before] [--extract=[,...]]"

Pro and Core display the same message.

I can run a restore using Kickstart 8.0.6 without any problems.

Friday, 12 December 2025 09:52 CST

nicholas

Enable the PHP phar extension on your server for the PHP version you're currently using.

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!

Friday, 12 December 2025 10:27 CST

linets

Thanks for the quick reply.

 

As I understand it, PHAR is enabled by default (https://www.php.net/manual/en/phar.installation.php) and Joomla system info says Phar: PHP archive support is enabled (see attached)?

 

 

Friday, 12 December 2025 12:05 CST

nicholas

We call Phar::webPhar to tell PHP to check if the script is being accessed over the web and run the Kickstart web application. If PHP does not detect it's running over the web, it falls back to the next statement which loads the CLI application.

The problem is that PHP does not detect it's running under the web. I believe its detection relies both the REQUEST_URI and REQUEST_METHOD environment variables being set and non-empty, with the REQUEST_METHOD expected to be either GET or POST (case-sensitive). This is indeed how the default and recommended PHP configuration for CGI, FastCGI, and Apache module work. If your server has a weird configuration then no, it wouldn't work.

I have not used Laragon, so I have no idea how it's set up. You should check to make sure that what I described does happen. Otherwise, sorry, PHP just can't tell you're running Kickstart's PHAR archive over the web.

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, 15 December 2025 10:36 CST

linets

Clearing my browser cache resolved the problem.

I noticed that, although using the same name for a Kickstart 8 file worked, it would only work with Kickstart 9 if I used a filename I hadn't used before.

I've used three different browsers on my PC to test restores and, for each browser, clearing the cache fixed the issue.

 

Thanks again for the quick replies. I'll be using random filenames from now on ;-)

 

Tuesday, 16 December 2025 01:57 CST

nicholas

I noticed that, although using the same name for a Kickstart 8 file worked, it would only work with Kickstart 9 if I used a filename I hadn't used before.

That's odd, because the redirection code hasn't changed between versions 8.x and 9.0. In fact, it's been the same since at least Kickstart 5 – that's about when I stopped looking.

It's also doubly odd because I am definitely using the same filename for back-to-back test runs on a development (Apache on Debian) and a live (Litespeed on CentOS) server without being able to reproduce this issue on Firefox or Chromium.

Out of curiosity, which browser are you using? Also, if you use Private / Incognito Mode in your browser, does the problem persist on that browser?

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, 16 December 2025 03:58 CST

linets

I had the problem with Edge, Firefox and Chrome on two different Windows devices that I use. 

The problem does not persist in an Incognito/InPrivate tab.

The filename I usually rename the kickstart file to is mixed case e.g. AAAAAAbbbbbb.php. I notice if I just use one case in the filename I don't get the problem.

Keeping the same mixed case filename with Kickstart 8 was fine. It was only when I tried using exactly the same filename for Kickstart 9 that the problem occurred.

After clearing the browser cache, I can use the mixed case URL again.

Tuesday, 16 December 2025 04:09 CST

nicholas

Is the server your site is on running on Linux or Windows?

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, 16 December 2025 04:36 CST

linets

I'm using Apache on Windows for my test environment.

I can't replicate the problem I had on our staging server, which is Apache on Linux.

Tuesday, 16 December 2025 04:42 CST

nicholas

OK, that's the problem I suspected. Windows uses case-insensitive filesystems (NTFS and FAT). This does cause issues with Apache when you have mixed-case files. For the purpose of using Kickstart on Windows (or macOS with a case-insensitive filesystem) please use a lowercase-only filename for 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, 16 December 2025 04:44 CST

linets

Will do. Thanks for your help.

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