Akeeba Backup for Joomla!

Thursday, 24 May 2012 04:04 CDT

user41767

Mandatory information about my setup:

Have I read the related troubleshooter articles above before posting (which pages?)? Yes
Have I searched the tickets before posting? Yes
Have I read the documentation before posting (which pages?)? Yes
Joomla! version: 2.5.4
PHP version: 5.2.17
MySQL version: 5.0.96
Host: site5
Akeeba Backup version: 3.5.0 pro

EXTREMELY IMPORTANT: Please attach a ZIP file containing your Akeeba Backup log file in order for us to help you with any backup or restoration issue. If the file is over 2Mb, please upload it on your server and post a link to it.

Description of my issue:

Having installed 3.5.0 last week and performed a full backup I thought everything was fine. Then I noticed that my cron backups have not been working so I looked in this forum and found the new location of the backup file in the cli folder, so I changed my cron job accordingly (hasn't run yet). Then I thought I would do a manual backup but it now fails with:-

The backup operation has been halted because an error was detected.
The last error message was:

AJAX Loading Error
HTTP Status: 12152 (error)
Internal status: error
XHR ReadyState: 4
Raw server response:

I tried re-installing 3.5.0 but that fails with the same error.

This morning I uninstalled the AKA LAZY plugin because it was disabled and no longer supported so I thought I'd tidy my site, could that possibly be the problem? Log file attached.

Thursday, 24 May 2012 04:15 CDT

nicholas

The manual backup failure seems to be unrelated with the other changes which you mention. Let's try this. Go to your Akeeba Backup Configuration page and set:
- Minimum execution time: 1 second
- Maximum execution time: 7 seconds
- Runtime bias: 50%
and run the backup again.

If the backup still fails please ZIP and attach the new backup log file. Thanks!

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!

Thursday, 24 May 2012 04:22 CDT

user41767

Thanks for the very quick response!

I have tried those settings and it has failed again. New log file attached.

PS - although Akeeba said that the backup had failed when I look at the Backup files it says it's OK ? The previous files were labelled as "failed" or "pending"

Edited by user41767 on 2012-05-24 04:26 CDT

Thursday, 24 May 2012 04:25 CDT

nicholas

OK, the backup has been completed but the last few post-run steps do not execute. Let's try two different sets of settings:

- Minimum execution time: 2 seconds
- Maximum execution time: 7 seconds
- Runtime bias: 50%

If that fails, try this:

- Minimum execution time: 5 seconds
- Maximum execution time: 3 seconds (yes, max is less than min, it's not a typo)
- Runtime bias: 50%

If nothing works, well, ZIP and attach the new log file.

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!

Thursday, 24 May 2012 04:34 CDT

user41767

Both of those failed I'm afraid.

Latest log file attached.

Thursday, 24 May 2012 04:45 CDT

nicholas

We'll have to go extra-conservative.

- Minimum execution time: 5 seconds
- Maximum execution time: 1 seconds
- Runtime bias: 50%

If that still fails, you have to ask your host to increase the CPU usage limit on your account because we can't make Akeeba Backup throttle down any more than that!

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!

Thursday, 24 May 2012 04:52 CDT

user41767

Still failing, I'll wait and see what the cron job does as that runs in the middle of the night. Backup has been working without a hitch for quite a long time with my old Joomla 1.5 site though, only now this problem with upgrade to 2.5.

Thursday, 24 May 2012 04:56 CDT

nicholas

Yes, let's see if the CRON job runs.

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!

Thursday, 24 May 2012 05:08 CDT

user41767

Using the IFrames instead of AJAX option appears to have worked...

Thursday, 24 May 2012 05:11 CDT

nicholas

Can you try using also a different browser, e.g. Chrome? I am curious as to whether this is an Internet Explorer issue.

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!

Thursday, 24 May 2012 05:14 CDT

user41767

I'll try Firefox and Chrome and post back. I'm pretty sure I was using IE9 last time it worked, but we'll see what happens..

Thursday, 24 May 2012 05:46 CDT

user41767

Hmm well Chrome and Firefox both initiated successful backups with AJAX setting on, but then when I tried IE9 again so did that!
Not sure that gets us very far....
But the backups are working, which is the main thing, thanks again.

Thursday, 24 May 2012 05:53 CDT

nicholas

Well, it would have been the server load. I'm glad that the backups now work :)

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!

Thursday, 24 May 2012 06:22 CDT

user41767

Thanks, and thanks for a superb component - I used it to restore my site a couple of months ago and it worked like a dream!

Saturday, 26 May 2012 04:21 CDT

user41767

Well the manual backup is working fine but my Cron job just doesn't run.

I have this as the cron:-

/usr/bin/php /home/mysite/public_html/cli/akeeba-backup.php >>$HOME/cron.log2>>$HOME/cron.err

the cron log shows nothing and the cron error file content is "Content-type: text/html"

that's it. Used to work fine with previous backup file location.

Any ideas?

Saturday, 26 May 2012 04:27 CDT

nicholas

The PHP binary you are using is the PHP CGI binary. This is not supported. You have to use the PHP CLI binary. Older versions of the CRON script did run with the CGI binary, but we had noticed several issues, mainly due to the fact that the CGI binary is enforcing time limits. That's why our documentation stated that you'd need to use the CLI binary since two years ago.

In the new version we are using Joomla! Platform's JApplicationCli to host the command-line script. The main advantage is that we no longer have to maintain our huge list of hacks which made running Joomla! outside a web environment possible. The downside is that it requires using the CLI binary; it will simply not work on anything else. Unfortunately, going back to the previous state is not possible as it'd mean that with the next version of Joomla! the CLI scripts would break, as it happened when Joomla! 1.6, 1.7 and 2.5 were released. The only way to make the CRON script future-proof is using JApplicationCli.

So, all you have to do is ask your host which is the path to the PHP CLI binary and put it in your CRON job's command line.

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!

Saturday, 26 May 2012 04:43 CDT

user41767

Well according to the server it has php cli installed?

-bash-3.2$ php -v
PHP 5.2.17 (cli) (built: Dec 16 2011 05:00:38)
Copyright (c) 1997-2010 The PHP Group

and the server path to php is /usr/bin/php

Am I missing something else here (and thanks again for the amazingly quick response!)

Saturday, 26 May 2012 04:46 CDT

nicholas

In that case you are most likely using the wrong path. Do a which php over SSH to see what is the full path to the PHP CLI binary. I want to double check that it's indeed /usr/bin/php and not something else.

If that doesn't help, try running this from SSH:
/usr/bin/php /home/mysite/public_html/cli/akeeba-backup.php

and attach a ZIP with a txt file of the results in the terminal window. I want to see what's going on there.

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!

Saturday, 26 May 2012 04:49 CDT

user41767

which php returns /usr/local/bin/php

host's documentation says path is /usr/bin/php

Should I try putting the local in...?

Saturday, 26 May 2012 04:51 CDT

nicholas

Yup, you must /usr/local/bin/php. It's not the first time a host's documentation is inaccurate. Good thing you have SSH access!

OK, while you're at it, run this from the SSH command line:

/usr/local/bin/php /home/mysite/public_html/cli/akeeba-backup.php

It should run and produce a backup. Once that works, you can change the CRON command line.

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!

Saturday, 26 May 2012 04:56 CDT

user41767

It works ! Cron has just run successfully with that change. Many thanks again.

Saturday, 26 May 2012 04:57 CDT

nicholas

You're welcome!

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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