Support

Hm, I can't understand your support request. Do you have a problem backing up (take a copy of your site TO a backup archive) or restoring (create a site FROM a backup archive)? In your request you say that you are trying to backup, then you mention Kickstart (which is only used on restoration) not working, then you talk about Akeeba Backup Installer (which is extracted FROM the backup archive by Kickstart) then you say it can't complete without Kickstart working. All of that does not make any sense.

First tell me if I am correct when I suppose that what you are trying to do is restore a site. Then, please do tell me if you are restoring on the same or a different site. Also, please do tell me the steps you followed, one by one, and copy & paste the EXACT error messages you are receiving. If I can't understand what you're doing and you don't tell me the error messages you are receiving I can't help you.

OK, this now makes much more sense.

First, check if you have a multipart backup archive. In this case you have several files with an extension of .jpa, .j01, .j02 and so on. You will need to put all of them in your site's root to perform a restoration.

Another thing you have to check is that you have transferred all files from and to the server using FTP in binary transfer mode. Anything else could corrupt the files and cause this problem.

If this still doesn't help, you can try extracting your backup archive on your local PC using Akeeba eXtract Wizard, our desktop software for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux which allows you to extract JPA and ZIP backup archives created by Akeeba Backup. In this case, just upload all extracted files to your site's root and access the installation directory directly, e.g. http://www.example.com/installation/index.php. When you're done with the restoration, just remove the installation directory.

Contradiction:

I do not have a multi-part backup. it was all just one file. Also, my FTP is set up for binary.

When Akeeba made a backup, it provided a link which downloaded the backup file locally to my computer.

This means that you did not download the backup archive using FTP. Correct?

Akeeba eXtract Wizard will extract the backup archive on your computer. If this works, the rest of the instructions were mentioned in my post:

just upload all extracted files to your site's root and access the installation directory directly, e.g. http://www.example.com/installation/index.php. When you're done with the restoration, just remove the installation directory.

Anyway, when you try Akeeba eXtract Wizard, do you get an error? And if so, what is the error message?

Even though it's the third time I'm giving the same instructions, let's try a step by step approach.

STEP #1 : Extracting the backup archive on your PC
- Download the backup archive to your PC
- Run Akeeba eXtract Wizard
- The topmost textbox is titled "Archive file". Click the button to its far right.
- Locate the backup archive you downloaded and double click on it
- The textbox below is titled "Extract to folder". Click on the button to its far right
- Select a directory where the extracted files will be written to on your local PC.

STEP #2 : Uploading the files to your site
Use your FTP programme to transfer the files you just extracted to your site. We need you to copy the files from your PC (the "Extract to folder" directory you chose above) to your site's root.

STEP #3 : Take the trash out
- Using your FTP programme, remove kickstart.php from your site. You will NOT be needing it! Kickstart is ONLY required to extract the JPA file. We already extracted it using Akeeba eXtract Wizard. Therefore, we do not need Kickstart at all.
- Rename .htaccess to htaccess.bak (if you have a .htaccess file in your site's root)
- Rename php.ini to php.ini.bak (if you have a php.ini file in your site's root)

STEP #4 : Running the restoration
- Visit http://www.example.com/installation/index.php where www.example.com should be replace with the domain name of your site.
- Follow all the restoration steps
- After you are done, use your FTP programme to remove the "installation" directory from your site's root.
- If you had previously renamed the .htaccess and/or php.ini files:
i. Rename htaccess.bak to .htaccess
ii. Rename php.ini.bak to php.ini

You should be up and running now if you follow these instructions.

If, despite following these instructions, you can not see your site's front-end or back-end, please send me a Personal Message (I am user nicholas) with the following information:
- URL to your site
- FTP connection information (host, username, password)
- Database connection information (host, database, username, password)
- Super Administrator username and password
and I will take a look myself.

You're welcome!

But you still did not understand what eXtract is. JPA files are like ZIP files. They hold many files together. eXtract is to JPA files what WinZIP is to ZIP files: it extracts them. Kickstart is like eXtract, it only extracts the backup archive (JPA file). The difference is that Kickstart runs on your server whereas eXtract runs on your local computer (not the server). This means that the files are extracted by eXtract to your local PC. That's why you need to upload them to your site.

The restoration is not performed by Kickstart. It's not performed by eXtract either. The restoration is executed by Akeeba Backup Installer, also known as ABI. ABI is a programme written in PHP. It is included inside the backup archive (inside the JPA file). When you extract your backup archive, you see the installation directory, right? This is where ABI lives. In fact, the installation directory contains only two things:
- Akeeba Backup Installer (ABI)
- Your database backup, inside the installation/sql directory

So, no matter if you use Kickstart or eXtract, you need to run ABI to perform the restoration. Kickstart offers you a button called "Run the installer". Clicking this button opens a new browser tab. The URL in the new tab is something like http://www.example.com/installation/index.php. When you do not use Kickstart, i.e you used eXtract, you have to visit this URL yourself.

Joomla! will always redirect to installation/index.php if the installation directory is present. That's why after the restoration you need to remove it. If you use Kickstart, it includes a "Clean Up" button which does that automatically, for your convenience. If you don't use Kickstart, you can simply remove the installation directory yourself using FTP.

It all clicks together if you realise that the restoration is actually three independent steps. Just like with all things web, you are under the illusion that it's one process, when in fact it's three independent things happening one after the other. This illusion is what makes it look easy ;)