Support

Mandatory information about my setup:

Have I read the related troubleshooter articles above before posting (which pages?)? Yes but none relevant
Have I searched the forum before posting? yes
Have I read the documentation before posting (which pages?)? everything about crontab for automated backups
Joomla! version: 1.5.23
PHP version: 5.2.17
MySQL version: (unknown)
Host: (optional, but it helps us help you) 1and1.com
Akeeba Backup version: (unknown) 3.3.1 core

EXTREMELY IMPORTANT: Please attach your Akeeba Backup log file in order for us to help you with any backup or restoration issue.

Description of my issue:
I had been doing daily site backups very nicely using 3.3b.1 core but when 3.3.1 came out I thought it would be best to upgrade to it. While the upgrade appeared to go just fine, and backend backups continued to work just fine, I have been unable to get the frontend backups to work at all.

I have wasted hours and hours poring over the documentation looking for what might have changed since 3.3b.1. My original working command that I used with crontab (and which worked as well from the command line) was (secret key is redacted)

$HOME/bin/wget --max-redirect=10000 "http://www.folkworks.org/index.php?option=com_akeeba&view=backup&key=xxxxxx&profile=1" >> $HOME/FWLive/administrator/backups/foobar.log 2>&1

This now gives me

--2011-07-28 09:59:28-- http://www.folkworks.org/index.php?option=com_akeeba&view=backup&key=folk3839backup&profile=1
Resolving www.folkworks.org (www.folkworks.org)... 74.208.40.143
Connecting to www.folkworks.org (www.folkworks.org)|74.208.40.143|:80... connected.
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK
Length: unspecified [text/html]
Saving to: `index.php?option=com_akeeba&view=backup&key=folk3839backup&profile=1'

0K 2.15M=0s

2011-07-28 09:59:28 (2.15 MB/s) - `index.php?option=com_akeeba&view=backup&key=folk3839backup&profile=1' saved [17]

But no backup happens and nothing gets written into the akeeba.frontend.log file.

I also tried

$HOME/bin/wget --max-redirect=10000 --output-file=$HOME/FWLive/administrator/backups/foobar.log "http://www.folkworks.org/index.php?option=com_akeeba&view=backup&key=xxxxxx&profile=1"

but this didn't result in a backup occurring either.

I have uninstalled and reinstalled akeeba 3.3.1 core and have been unable to make any progress.

I have tried the alternate php script as in the documentation and it also fails to perform a backup. However, it results in a
403 Access denied error instead of the 404 error. This seems pretty odd to me as it is using the exact same URL as the wget command uses.

What have I done wrong?



As far as I can tell, 3.3.1 broke the frontend function.

I should have mentioned that I have already checked and ensured that the configuration was set up properly - both after the upgrade and after the uninstall/reinstall processes.

I also neglected to mention that initially after the upgrade (and after reinstallation) the message that my system did not support encryption was displayed - until I ran the configuration wizard. After that the message was displayed that my system DOES support encryption. This is at least confusing.

Is there anything else I should be checking?

just so you know and don't waste your time ... I have gone back to 3.3b.1 and things are working again.

I have to step out for a bit, but I will re-upgrade to 3.3.1 after I get back and see if it breaks again.

I should mention that I did the upgrade by downloading the 3.3.1 release from your site and then 'installing' via the Joomla Install/Remove panel as opposed to from the akeeba update button in the akeeba control panel. Actually, I don't remember seeing that it said there was an update available. I just stumbled into it while looking for information about something else.

I don't know the answer to your question as I didn't note it at the time and I've done too many things since to remember for sure.

At this point, however, the good news is that I did the update from 3.3b.1 to 3.3.1 using the update button and all now works perfectly. I guess that might be the bad news as well. The problem is 'fixed' but I have no idea what the cause of the problem was.

This Akeeba product is quite a wonderful piece of work. Very smart. Very robust. Very complex but most of that is under the covers where it should be. Bravo.