Admin Tools 2.2.4

Admin Tools 2.2.4 is released.

We are pleased to announce the immediate availability of Admin Tools 2.2.4, a hotfix release of our Admin Tools 2.2 series.

This is a hotfix release of Admin Tools, dealing with a high priority bug in the Change Super Administrator ID feature which didn't work in version 2.2.3. Moreover, we're improving the integration with Joomla! 2.5's extensions updater so that you will be able to update Admin Tools using Joomla!'s own updater in the future.

WARNING: This version is only compatible with Joomla! 1.5 and 2.5. It will not work at all on Joomla! 1.6 and we do not support using it on Joomla! 1.7.

Release notes

Joomla! 1.7 and 2.5 updates

When using Admin Tools 2.2.0 or earlier to upgrade Joomla! 1.7 or 2.5 to their latest release, you might observe a few issues:

• The Joomla! version is shown multiple times. Please go to Extensions, Manage Modules, select Administrator and find the Joomla! Version modules. Delete or disable all copies except one.
• It is possible that other administrator modules (e.g. the multilingual status) are published many times. The same solution applies.
• Your text filter settings are reset, causing saved articles to lose formatting. Go to Global Configuration and click on Save & Close. If you had set up any text filter settings, you will have to set them again; your old settings are lost.

In any case, we strongly recommend using Admin Tools 2.2.4 to either upgrade to the latest version of Joomla! 1.7/2.5. If you have already used Admin Tools 2.2.0 to upgrade to Joomla! 1.7.5 or 2.5.3, please use the "Reinstall 1.7.5" or "Reinstall 2.5.3" button respectively. This will make sure that future upgrades using Admin Tools or Joomla!'s own updater will work properly.

When upgrading from Joomla! 2.5.3 or earlier to Joomla! 2.5.4 you may end up with error text displayed on the page. This is not a bug in Admin Tools, it is caused by the way jUpgrade handles menu item IDs during the migration from Joomla! 1.5 to newer versions and the way Joomla!'s update SQL files are written. For more information, please consult our relevant troubleshooting article.

Finally, we are pleased to announce that Admin Tools' Joomla! Update feature is now part of the official Joomla! 2.5.4 release! This means that the next Admin Tools series (2.3) will no longer include this feature. Instead, they will be hooking up with the new com_joomlaupdate core component to provide one-click Joomla! updates. Moreover, Admin Tools' Joomla! update check module is now considered obsolete as this feature is already provided in Joomla! 2.5.0 and later, thanks to a patch written by our lead developer, Nicholas. We are very excited that our well-tested, practical methods of keeping Joomla! up-to-date are now included in the Joomla! core and made available to all users of our favourite CMS!

Using with Akeeba Subscriptions

If you are also using Akeeba Subscriptions 2.x on your site, please make sure that you have installed Akeeba Subscriptions 2.0 Stable or later before installing Admin Tools 2.0.a1 or later. Older versions of Akeeba Subscriptions can cause Admin Tools to fail and bring your site down.

Upgrading from a previously installed Professional release

Please DO NOT use Joomla! 2.5's extension updates to upgrade Admin Tools Professional. Doing so will most likely lead to errors and might even bring your site down (if that happens, read the next section of these release notes). Instead, you'll have to use our component's Live Update. If this is the first time you are upgrading the Professional release or if you receive errors while updating, please follow our Admin Tools Professional update instructions. If this doesn't help, please consult our installation troubleshooting page.

Installing / updating Admin Tools brought your site down

If you accidentally installed Admin Tools 2.2.x on a live site with an unsupported Joomla! or PHP version, or if the installation/update failed, your site might be inadvertently taken down. No worries, it's very easy to fix. You will have to manually uninstall Admin Tools' files and retry the installation. If you have a Joomla! 1.7 site, you will have to install Admin Tools 2.1.14, not 2.2.x.

In order to perform a manual file uninstallation, please follow this procedure. Using an FTP programme, please remove the following files and directories, in the order outlined below:

plugins/system/admintools.php (Joomla! 1.5 only)

plugins/system/admintools

plugins/system/atoolsjupdatecheck.php (Joomla! 1.5 only)

plugins/system/atoolsjupdatecheck (Joomla! 1.7 only)

plugins/system/atoolsupdatecheck.php (Joomla! 1.5 only)

plugins/system/atoolsupdatecheck (Joomla! 1.7 only)

administrator/modules/mod_atjupgrade

components/com_admintools

administrator/components/com_admintools

libraries/fof (only if you are NOT using Akeeba Subscriptions)

Then, please download the ZIP package of an earlier Admin Tools release, compatible with your Joomla! version, from our Downloads area and install it on your site.

Getting Admin Tools and receiving support

As always, you can download the free version, Admin Tools Core, from our Downloads page without any charge. If you are a Professional subscriber you can download the Admin Tools Professional release from the same page; just make sure you are logged in before visiting the download page. Alternatively, you can use the integrated Live Update feature of our software to update it automatically on supported server environments.

Since July 2011, support is provided only to subscribers. We have created a cheap (7.79€) subscription, MINISUPPORT, which gives you access to our Ticket System for eight days, with the same priority as all subscribers to any subscription level. If you have an active ATPRO susbcription you already have access to the support forum; you don’t need to buy a new subscription. Moreover, if you have an active AKEEBADELUXE or SUPPORT subscription you can get top priority, private support through our Private Ticket support system.

Do you want the maximum protection for your Joomla! site without spending a fortune? Admin Tools Professional can do that, with a flat cost of 20 Euros – or just 10, if you bought an AKEEBAPRO subscription the last three months. An ATPRO subscription allows you to use the component on as many sites as you want, for as long as you want (even after your subscription expires) and receive updates and support for a whole year. For the price of a cheap dinner you can get the maximum protection for all your Joomla! 1.5, 1.7 and 2.5 sites. Go Professional today!

Supported versions

Our support policy is to provide support only to the latest published stable release of Admin Tools, as well as to the latest published preview (alpha, beta or release candidate) release, if one is available. Furthermore, we will only support running our software on the latest published Joomla! version. Earlier Joomla! versions are vulnerable to security threats or buggy, therefore unsupported.

Moreover, we only support the Joomla! versions officially supported by the Joomla! project. Due to the plethora of active Joomla! versions, we have consolidated the support terms for different Admin Tools and Joomla! version combinations in the table below: 

* Only the latest Admin Tools 2.2.x release is supported. At the time of this writing, this is version 2.2.4

** If a new Admin Tools series (e.g. 2.3.x or 3.x) is released before August 2013, Admin Tools 2.2.x will cease being supported, per our support policy stated above.

*** Future versions will drop Joomla! 1.5 compatibility. Users running the latest published version of Admin Tools 2.2.x on Joomla! 1.5 will be supported until August 1st. After that point, no support will be provided to Joomla! 1.5 users.

We would like to remind you that Joomla! versions 1.5.0-1.5.25, 1.6.x, 1.7.x and 2.5.0-2.5.2 all contain a very high importance security vulnerability which allows an attacker to easily reset your Super Administrator password (Joomla! 1.5) or create a new Super Administrator account (Joomla! 1.6, 1.7, 2.5.0-2.5.2). Due to the way these attacks work, it is impossible for Admin Tools or any other security component to protect you against them. The only secure thing to do is to immediately upgrade to Joomla! 1.5.26 (Joomla! 1.5 sites) or 2.5.4 (Joomla! 1.6, 1.7 and 2.5) sites which, at the time of this writing, are the only secure versions of Joomla!. Using any other version WILL get you hacked, have no doubt about it. The attack for versions 1.6 and later is trivial and widely publicised. If you have an older version of Joomla! you are essentially a sitting duck.

Changelog

New features

• Making sure you won't forget to enter your Download ID

Miscellaneous changes

• Automatically update the XML update stream in Joomla! 2.5 to make use of the Download ID in the Pro release

Bug fixes

• The Change Super Administrator ID function was broken
• Could not filter log entries by GeoBlocking and HTTP:BL