Support

Hello,

that's pretty strange.
Can you please do a quick search for FOF in the installed extensions? What's the package type reported by Joomla?

Since FOF 3.4.0 the package type for FOF has been changed from "library" to "file". This was necessary to prevent a very serious Joomla! bug when installing an older version of FOF: Joomla! uninstalls the library, then installs whichever version you gave it without asking any more questions. This meant that people would downgrade FOF by accident, e.g. by installing an older version of our software, with detrimental results in the functionality of the site.

The downside to that is that Joomla! won't really let you get rid of the older package that has a different package type. The only thing we can do is remove the update site. We cannot touch the extension record because that would break the assets table which is used for ACLs over the entire site. Moreover, Joomla! caches the old XML manifest of the "library" type extension and reports it whenever you use the Discover feature.

The only way around that is to completely uninstall FOF and the reinstall it. However, you cannot do that when there are extensions relying on it. So you'd have to uninstall Akeeba Backup and Admin Tools, losing their configuration settings (and your backup records). Between that and the very mild annoyance of having multiple records for FOF I chose the latter.

Ideally, Joomla! should fix its installer so it doesn't do utterly insane things like completely uninstalling(!!!) a library before it even considers whether it's an upgrade or downgrade. Ugh. The funny thing is that this bug is known since 2015 and was introduced at least as early as 2010. In 2015 there was a discussion about fixing it, the consensus was "let's kick the can down this road to Joomla! 4" and then absolutely nothing happened. In fact, Joomla! 4 still has the same unfixed bug. So all we can do is say sorry, we are trying to do things the Joomla! way (otherwise they'd kick us out of the Joomla! Extensions Directory) so you'll have to put up with the Joomla! issues we are not allowed to solve. It sucks for us more than it sucks for you, trust me on that...

In all honestly, I think it's futile. This issue has been reported a number of times. The "resolution" is that it will be fixed in a major version, i.e. Joomla! 4. Unfortunately, this doesn't seem likely. You can of course report this issue but you will be told one of the following:

• It's the expected behavior (even though it's stupid).
• It will be fixed in Joomla! 4 (even through it probably won't).
• It's the developer's problem for using the "wrong" extension type (files vs library), i.e. they don't understand the problem and shift the blame to the affected party.
• You should have uninstalled the library extension before installing the file extension (never mind that this causes data loss; again they'd shift the blame to the affected party).

If you really want to file a bug report, do so. Just please don't drag me into it. Between 2009 and 2015 I was trying really hard to send patches to issues I encountered. I'd spend 5' fixing the code and 25 days debating the fix, typically unsuccessfully. I have a family now. I have neither the time nor the energy to argue with random strangers on the Internet about self-evident things.