Akeeba Backup for Joomla! 7.5.1 Stable

Released on: 2021-01-07 05:07 CST

What's new

Post-backup emails can now display the total backup size and the approximate size of each part file We added two variables for the body of emails to be sent after the backup is complete, configurable in the component Options page. One will report the total size of the backup, the other will list all backup part files with their approximate file sizes. Please read the documentation for more detailed information

The Joomla 4 console plugin could not install due to a bug in Joomla 4's plugins installer code. The previous version added support for Joomla 4's console application (joomla.php). This is implemented with a plugin in the console group. Since it is a Joomla 4 only plugin we used Joomla 4's new way for organising plugin code per its documentation. However, due to a bug in the plugin installer code in Joomla, plugins using the new way to organise the code cannot be installed. This caused a warning message when installing Akeeba Backup and resulted in the console application integration not being enabled. Moreover, it caused the plugin to appear in Joomla 3 where it has no relevance and cannot be used. We addressed both issues in this version.

Backup failure to S3 with a PHP Type Error when the Dual Stack option has no value. This is an extremely rare situation. Akeeba Backup normally detects when the Dual Stack option has not been set yet and defaults it to Yes. In case the configuration was saved automatically before a backup ran or the configuration page opened (an extremely rare occurence) an invalid value would be stored causing a PHP error. We now detect the invalid value and convert it to the default value.

Uploading to Dropbox would fail if you linked your Dropbox account after December 2020. Startring December 2020 Akeeba Backup is using scoped access with short-lived Dropbox tokens to authenticate itself to Dropbox. Due to a Dropbox documentation error at the time of implementation and a missing line in our code you were unable to use Dropbox if you linked your Dropbox account to Akeeba Backup after we aplied this change in December 2020. If you had linked your account before that you had a never-expiring access token which wasn't affected. We have identiifed and resolved both problems now.

Bug fixes and minor improvements. Please take a look at the CHANGELOG below.

Joomla! versions supported

We only officially support using our software with the latest Joomla! release branch, 3.9. We strongly advise you to run the latest available version of Joomla! for security reasons. Older versions of Joomla! have known major security issues which are being actively exploited to hack sites.

We offer limited support for Joomla 4.0 which is currently in Beta. Akeeba Ticket System will work on it but there may be some minor or bigger issues. We try to discover and address them. The biggest challenge is that Joomla 4 is still undergoing changes, despite being labeled Beta, which may introduce new issues on each release. We do not plan on offering full support for Joomla 4 until it reaches at least the Release Candidate 1 stage.

Support for Joomla 3.10 is currently considered experimental. At the time of this writing Joomla 3.10 is in a pre-production, alpha state. We strongly advise you to NOT use Joomla 3.10. Like all new Joomla 3 version families we plan on supporting it as soon as it reaches stable status.

PHP versions supported

We only officially support using our software with PHP 7.2, 7.3, 7.4 or 8.0.

While our software still runs on PHP 7.2, this versions of PHP is declared End of Life by the PHP project and no longer receives any security updates. We are no longer testing our software with these PHP versions and we strongly advise you to not use them on production sites.

We strongly advise you to run either of the two latest available version branches of PHP on a branch currently maintained by the PHP project for security and performance reasons. Older versions of PHP have known major security issues which are being actively exploited to hack sites and they have stopped receiving security updates, leaving you exposed to these issues. Moreover, they are slower, therefore consuming more server resources to perform the same tasks.

Please note that PHP 8.0 is, at the time of this writing, a very new PHP version which brings major changes to the PHP language. We strongly recommend holding off updating into it until April 2021 and only doing so after confirming that all of your extensions have been updated to support it. Do note that by “all extensions” we mean components, plugins, modules and templates.

Finally, please bear in mind that earlier PHP versions including but not limited to all PHP 4.x and 5.x versions, as well as PHP 7.0 are no longer supported. Our software no longer works on these old, unsupported versions of PHP. All of these versions of PHP have been end of life for several years. We VERY STRONGLY recommend upgrading to a version of PHP that's currently supported by the PHP project.

Our policy with regards to PHP version support is to officially support the PHP versions that the PHP project itself considers a Currently Supported version, i.e. all versions of PHP in the Active Support and Security Support phase. We will show you a warning when we detect a PHP version that has entered Security Support so you have the chance to plan and implement a PHP version update. After a PHP versions becomes End of Life (EOL) we will only support it for a further 6 to 9 months. If we detect such a version we will show you a message so you can urgently plan and implement a PHP version update. After 6 to 9 months after a PHP version becomes EOL we may stop providing support for it without any prior notice. We also track the development of new versions of PHP. New versions of PHP will be unofficially supported sometime during their Release Candidate phase and fully supported about 4 to 8 weeks after the first stable version of that branch is officially released by the PHP project. Your site's participation in the opt-out usage statistics helps us collect anonymous information about the use of PHP versions on your sites and decide when to withdraw support for EOL versions of PHP.

Changelog

Bug fixes

  • [HIGH] Backup failure to S3 with a PHP Type Error when the Dual Stack option has no value
  • [HIGH] The Joomla 4 console plugin could not install due to a bug in Joomla 4's plugins installer code
  • [HIGH] Uploading to Dropbox would fail if you linked your Dropbox account after December 2020
  • [LOW] Manage Remotely Stored Files actions could fail on Box, Dropbox, OneDrive and Google Drive if the access token had expired in the meantime.
  • [LOW] No list of backup files in the post-backup email when using a post-processing engine

New features

  • Post-backup emails can now display the total backup size and the approximate size of each part file