Support

Site Restoration

#42693 Kickstart hangs and errors after starting

Posted in ‘Site restoration’
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Environment Information

PHP version
8.2
CMS Type
Joomla!
CMS Version
5.4.1
Backup Tool Version
10.0.3
Kickstart version
8.0.6 & 9.0.2

Latest post by nicholas on Saturday, 07 February 2026 05:33 CST

Kirkwood

Please look at the bottom of this page (under Support Policy Summary) for our support policy summary, containing important information regarding our working hours and our support policy. Thank you!

 

HI, I am in need of some urgent help.

I have used Akeeba backup and Kickstart very successfully over many years and this is the first problem I have had. 

I have several backup files (jpa) from one site that were created without apparent error. I have had a server crash and they will not now restore. Kickstart starts and the extractor begins its work but takes a very long time before throwing an error into the web page (screenshot attached) and stopping. The error log (attached) shows two lines repeated many times. 

Restarting the restoration proceeds for a while and then stops again with the same error.

I have tried with Kickstart versions 7.1.2, 8.0.6 and 9.0.2, all with very similar results.

 

Kind regards,

David

 

 

 

Kirkwood

The original error log file is called error_log and is not accepted by the ticket system. This has been renamed to error_log.txt. 

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager

The problem is not with the backup archive, or Kickstart, but with the host.

Since you're in a time crunch, I am not going to guide you through troubleshooting your server issues but rather tell you how to get the site restored. After all, this is the only reason I am replying to you after hours (it's past 10pm where I live). Important to remember is that Kickstart only extracts the backup archive, it DOES NOT restore your site. The actual restoration uses a script that is included inside the backup archive itself and gets extracted in the installation directory.

Set up a local web server on your computer e.g. MAMP, or WAMPserver.

Put Kickstart and a copy of the backup archive file(s) in the web root provided by the local server, and run Kickstart locally.

When you see the "Run the installer" button, close your browser.

Go to your local web root. Delete Kickstart and the backup archive files.

Upload everything else into your live site's web root.

Now visit your live site's /installation/index.php URL to complete the restoration.

At the end of the restoration process the restoration script will attempt to delete the installation directory. If it cannot do it, it will let you know; just delete that directory yourself using (S)FTP or your hosting control panel's file manager.

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!

Kirkwood

Many thanks for a much faster response than I had expected!

I will follow your instructions and revert here. Thank you.

Kirkwood

I'm not expecting a late night reply this time, so don't worry.

I have been trying for much of the day to restore this site but with no success so far. 

Trying several backup files I have never been able to complete the database restoration step - it fails with trying to insert duplicate rows and creating foreign keys to non-existent tables.

As the original database is still in place I tried skipping the restoration step and the process completed. However, the site displays the red Joomla error page. Turning PHP debugging on produces the attached screenshot, which suggests that an Akeeba component is missing.

Kind regards,

David 

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager

As it happens, I am still awake :D

Try deleting the administrator/cache/autoload_psr4.php file. This should force Joomla to rebuild its autoloader cache. This is the first thing you should always do when you get class not found errors on your site.

Regarding the DB restoration, I believe it's linked to the problem you had with extracting the backup archive. You should be able to work around that by making a few changes in the database restoration page:

  • Use REPLACE instead of INSERT: enabled
  • Stop on CREATE error: disabled
  • Stop on other error: disabled

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!

Kirkwood

Hi Nicholas,

it seems you keep the same kind of hours as I do! Again, many thanks for such a quick response.

I will try your suggestions today and revert.

Kind regards,

David

 

Kirkwood

Hi Nicholas,

Many thanks for your help, the site is now running again. I had to use the hints in your last reply although there was no autoload_psr4.php file.

It is now once again backed up, and I have purchases Backup Pro to increase the frequency of backup.

As a final question, would you have any idea what may have caused the crash in case it is something I can avoid in the future?

Once again, many thanks for your prompt, polite and effective advice.

Kind regards,

David

 

 

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager

A server crash is impossible to diagnose without much, if any, information to go by. From what I understand, you restored the site on the exact same server. You did not change servers, and you did not do a server rebuild. This rules out a hardware issue, or a server configuration issue. Therefore, it is more likely that it was a problem with your site, not the server. I can't tell you what it was without having the exact error it was showing, and without knowing what actions were taken right before the site stopped working properly.

The correct process in this case is to edit the configuration.php file to set $error_reporting = 'maximum' and $debug = true. This makes Joomla display the debug page when there's an error, with very detailed information about what happened. This is what a developer like me uses to start troubleshooting a site that no longer responds. If that makes no change, we go one step back and replace the contents of the .htaccess with the default content from Joomla's htaccess.txt, and then select the correct PHP version in the server's hosting control panel (since it might change the .htaccess file to apply it). Between these two simple actions we can start troubleshooting 90% of site issues. The other 10% of problems are not exactly crashes but misconfigurations in the server itself, DNS, any CDNs, server and site protection software and so on. These are easier to identify (they happened after making a change to one of these items) and harder to troubleshoot (you need experience with the particular software or service that has a misconfiguration).

Yes, I do realise that this is a long-winded way of saying "it really depends, mate", but it's also the objective truth. This is where experience and intuition come into play.

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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