2.3 Stable

07 August 2009 Last updated on 16 January 2012

JoomlaPack 2.3 (Stable) just released.

JoomlaPack Developers is pleased to announce the immediate availability of the new 2.3 (Stable) release of our accredited Joomla! site backup component. This release packs significant new functionality and delivers important bug fixes.

You can always download it following the links on our Downloads page. If you have any problems, suggestions, wishes or want to contact the team members, you can drop by our support forum.

 

If you find this software useful, please consider donating a small amount using the donation buttons found on the left hand column of this site and on the component's Control Panel page. This gives us the incentive to keep on coding great software and keeping it Free, both as in speech and as in beer!

Wait! There's more to JoomlaPack than just the component! Have you noticed our JoomlaPack Remote tool? It allows you to backup your sites right from your desktop. Just download our JoomlaPack Native Tools package.

Upgrade notes

This release delivers a new site restoration software, with better support for complex sites using ACL software, called JoomlaPack Installer 4 (JPI4 for short). If you are upgrading from a previous release, you must edit your configuration and choose the “JoomlaPack Installer 4” option for the “Embedded Installer” setting in order to use it. Failure to do so will keep on producing backup archives with the deprecated JPI2 or JPI3 restoration software. Support for these restoration scripts will be eventually dropped as JPI4 gets more thoroughly tested.

Moreover, please note that the two JoomlaPack editions have been renamed. JoomlaPack is now available in two editions: JoomlaPack Core is the entry-level edition, designed for first time users and webmasters with simple sites. Contrary to what you were used, this edition doesn't include the translations, which are now available as separate packages. You can download the language ZIP package for your native language separately and install it just like you'd do with any other extension. On the other hand, JoomlaPack Plus is the fully integrated edition, containing advanced features, extra embedded installers and all of the translations. It is designed for web professionals and webmasters with complex sites.

We need your help

Help us help you, by submitting cool new ideas in our support forum. There is a dedicated section for feature requests. Ask for anything, even if you think it's nonsensical, ridiculous or not very useful. Remember that about 30 months ago a reliable Joomla! backup solution written entirely in PHP, without requiring exec() privileges and able to work on slow servers was ludicrous. Then, JoomlaPack happened. Throw ideas around. We hear you and we try to implement them. You power Open Source, you power JoomlaPack!

Change log

The following is a list of changes since the last beta release, 2.3.b1.

New features and important changes

  • Kickstart's "Stealth Mode". Using an optional trigger (at the bottom of its main page), Kickstart can block stray visitors from accessing your site while you are restoring. It can either show them a 403 Forbidden page (deafult), or direct them to a specified static webpage on the same server. This is an experimental feature.
  • Kickstart can be renamed. Previously, you had to edit kickstart.php if you'd like to change its name. Now you can rename it to anything you like without having to edit it; it will simply work.
  • Kickstart package includes translations. Kickstart ZIP package comes with an assortment of INI language files which get automatically
  • Output Directory variables in the configuration. You can now use [ROOT] and [ROOTPARENT] for enhanced portability of your JoomlaPack installation accross hosts.
  • Optimistic settings are now the deafult in Easy Mode, improved settings modes. The new file scanner technology allows for faster backups on even more hosts and has now been made a default.

Bug fixes

(Critical bug fixes are highlighted)

  • Kickstart crashed on errors due to undefined JText class
  • Kickstart: Missing JText::sprintf() declaration caused fatal errors
    Kickstart wouldn't rename .htaccess
  • Kickstart did not delete all the parts of multi-part archives
  • Kickstart: FTP mode wasn't working
  • Beta updates were shown as stable releases
  • Notices thrown by JPI4 when open_basedir restrictions are in effect due to missing @ signs
  • Directory Exclusion wasn't working in JavaScript Redirects mode for directories starting with a space character
  • Single File Exclusion wasn't working in JavaScript Redirects mode for directories starting with a space character
  • Skip Contents Fitler wasn't working in JavaScript Redirects mode for directories starting with a space character
  • Deleting a Directory Exclusion filter would delete another entry if the directory name was the same, with any number of characters in different case, e.g. Test, test and TeSt
  • Deleting a Single File Exclusion filter would delete another entry if the directory/file name was the same, with any number of characters in different case, e.g. Test, test and TeSt
  • Deleting a Skip Contents filter would delete another entry if the directory/file name was the same, with any number of characters in different case, e.g. Test, test and TeSt
  • When the site's root is empty on Windows host, the Linux workaround is applied (missing "else" statement, oops!)
  • Default database dump engine could create invalid empty query lines: ");"
  • Default database dump engine ran the select query twice for each chunk of table data it had to dump (performance impact)
  • Test connection in MultiDB always returned false if the password or username contained a plus sign.
  • SAJAX was messing up variables containing "special" characters, like the plus sign (+).
  • cURL & URL fopen() wrapper update fetcher timeout set to 2 seconds, due to Control Panel timeouts when the server is behind a firewalling proxy
  • Integrated restoration wouldn't work on multipart backups
  • The "multipart" column wasn't always inserted in the stats table during installation
  • [HOST] tag would result in an empty string under certain circumstances
  • Community Builder tables were ruined during restoration
  • Uninstalling JoomlaPack would leave behind the filter tables
  • JPI4: mysqli interface was broken
  • JPI4: "Could no connect to MySQL server" error on Windows, in mid-restoration. NOTE: THIS IS A WINDOWS LIMITATION; THE WORKAROUND WORKS **ONLY** WITH THE mysql INTERFACE!
  • JPI4 couldn't restore UTF-8 data on some MySQL servers
  • JPI4, "deprecated" error under PHP 5.3
  • Path to Log and FTP root were saved with double backslashes in JPI4 running under Windows
  • JPI4 was re-opening the same db connection over and over again
  • Empty queries (just a semicolon) could cause the restoration to halt