Your explanation is a little misguided. You have two unrelated and very legitimate issues that are easy to fix.
ISSUE #1. UPGRADE FAILS.
The packages of our latest versions of our components are rather big. Since the default maximum upload size on most servers is just 2Mb this may cause an upload error. The best solution is to ask your host to set the following in the server's php.ini:
upload_max_filesize = 10M
post_max_size = 10M
If this is not possible, there's a good chance that the following lines in your .htaccess file may work on most servers:
php_value upload_max_filesize 10M
php_value post_max_size 10M
There is also another alternative, but it won't work on all hosts: installation by URL. Please go to the Download section of our site and select the software and version you want to download. Next to the "Download now" button you will see a link called "DirectLink". Right click on it and select "Copy link address" (the exact phrase depends on the browser, but it should have to do about copying the link or its address / URL / location).
Now go to your site's back-end, Extensions, Extensions Manager and find the Install from URL field. Note: on Joomla! 3.x you have to click on the "Install from URL" tab to see that field. Replace the contents of the "Install URL" field with the contents of your clipboard (the DirectLink URL you copied above) and click on the "Install" button next to this textbox. As long as your server supports installing extensions from URL the installation should go through.
If this still doesn't help you can always follow the manual installation instructions in
our troubleshooting documentation.
Important note: if your copy of Akeeba Backup still "sees" version the now unpublished 3.7.9 version as the latest version please click on the "Refresh update information" button before attempting to upgrade the component.
ISSUE #2. YOUR COMMAND LINE PHP VERSION IS WAY TOO OLD
The log file you supplied is from a CRON job run of Akeeba Backup. Please note that the command line scripts
are not run under the same PHP executable as the scripts being accessed over the web. This is the whole point behind having a command line backup script (the command line binary doesn't have time limits which allows for more efficient backups of your site).
Even though your web server is configured to use PHP 5.3, the path to the CLI binary you are using in your command line is PHP 5.2.17. Please ask your host for the path to the PHP 5.3 CLI binary and replace it in your CRON job's command line.
Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos
Lead Developer and Director
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