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Akeeba Backup for Joomla!

#33095 JSON decoding error

Posted in ‘Akeeba Backup for Joomla! 4 & 5’
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Environment Information

Joomla! version
n/a
PHP version
n/a
Akeeba Backup version
n/a

Latest post by on Tuesday, 23 June 2020 17:17 CDT

mikey186
I was using Akeeba Backup Pro I recently got, and willing to try out the JSON remote backup. Unfortunately the "Secret Key" doesn't tell me what's the JSON key. As shown below:
"key": "123456790"

Plus, I don't know if I should I GET or POST request it. So I did a "POST" request, and used the endpoint url and the key in the query, and I got a 500 error that says "JSON decoding error". Any idea why it's happening and as well as if there's a workaround for this.

(PS, I wrote the Joomla version wrong, it's 3.9.18)

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager
I'm afraid that you are not explaining clearly what you want to do and how you're trying to do it. You are talking about a non-existent thing ("JSON key") and giving me an out of context snippet I have no idea what it could be. It sounds like you could be doing either of two things, both wrong in their own ways.

If you are trying to use Akeeba Backup Professional for Joomla with a remote backup service, Akeeba UNiTE or Akeeba Remote CLI the Secret Word is what you need to provide.

Moreover, if you are trying to roll your own connector to the Akeeba Backup JSON API you need to read the Akeeba Backup JSON API Reference. You can't just POST to the endpoint URL. As I've written in the intro page of that documentation:

"For a real world implementation in PHP please take a look at Akeeba Remote Control CLI. You can also run it with the --verbose switch to see the communications taking place between the client and the server. We believe this is the best interactive demonstration of the API implementation."

Finally, please do note that it must fulfill a minimum password complexity requirement for the Akeeba Backup JSON API feature to be enabled. If you're using a Secret Word with the value 1234567890 it will be ignored and will always return an error because it's extremely insecure. All of this is documented under "Secret word". This applies no matter if you're using the JSON API with an already existing connector or if you're trying to roll your own.

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!

System Task
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