Support

Some servers report the permissions in a very strange way. Folders are reported as having 04755 permissions instead of 0755 and files are reported as having 0100644 permissions instead of 0644. This caused the permissions change code to run. Due to a typo in the code it would always report a failure and the warning box was shown. The funny thing is that this code is there since the early days of Akeeba Backup 3.2. Due to a different bug, the warning was never shown even when it should. After fixing some display issues in Akeeba Backup 3.6 the warning box would now get displayed. I was only able to debug it when someone offered me access to an affected server. All my servers seem to be reporting the permissions as 0755 and 0644, never triggering the bug.

I'm now working on Joomla! 3.0 compatibility. When I'm finished with that I will release a new version of Akeeba Backup. Till then anyone who is affected can ignore this warning message.

Yup, the permissions notice is a bug. You can ignore it until I publish Akeeba Backup 3.6.3.

Regarding PHP, I put that notice in place because I plan on dropping PHP 5.2 support sometime around Christmas. OK, the notice is way too prominent. I'll make it less visually disturbing in version 3.6.3, but it won't go away. I want everyone to have a fair warning that I will have to drop PHP 5.3 support. At some point even my development machine will be incapable of running PHP 5.2. Since I won't be able to ensure I can properly test with PHP 5.2 I will have to drop support for it. I'd hate to give y'all a nasty surprise without fair warning.

Is the deadline stressful? Yes. Should it be? NO! PHP 5.2 is end of life since January 2011. I believe that this way too long for a hosting provider not to have figured out a way to support the currently supported PHP version (5.3) across all of their servers. Can you imagine me insisting that you should still use Joomla! 1.0? That's pretty much what your hosting providers are doing with PHP 5.2. If your hosts ignore you, vote with your wallets, people. It's not a matter of some developer waking up one day and deciding that PHP 5.3 is the only way. It's a matter of security. PHP 5.2 is ancient, unsupported and already has one very high profile, easily exploitable vulnerability. It's irresponsible and insecure continuing using it. It's as simple as that :)