Support

Hello all:

I'm brand new to JoomlaPack and was referred to this site from the Joomla forum.

I recently installed the newest Joomla 1.5.15 upgrading from 1.5.11. In short, I experienced the following error message: JFolder::create: Could not create directory. Now since I’m noobtastic, I used Fantastico to do my install – I’m computer savy to the point that I can get myself in trouble… :roll:

Anyway, I did a cursory review of the JoomlaPack and it looks like it's for me. However, before I download it, install it, download files from my site, and conceivably do even more damage to my website, I have a couple of questions :arrow:

:?: - I understand that Joomlapack offers an easy way to backup my site. My concern of course, having just now learned about this site, is that I'm backing up a bad site. I'm not clear as to if this software will allow me to pull things like user accounts, pictures, articles, templates, etc. while leaving everything I don't need.

My proposed solution is to back-up my site using JoomlaPack, clear the current version and try and reinstall a new, clean version. That said I’m held hostage to whatever Fantastico offers me (currently 1.5.15) unless the .zip file is so self explanatory I can simply pull and FTP the files I need into their appropriate folders on the server…

:?: - It appears as though Fantastico has several backups of my site (presumably before my ill-fated 1.5.15 install). Is it possible for JoomlaPack to use one of these back-ups to essentially overlay an older version of my site over the new? The Fantastico file is a .tgz and it looks like JoomlaPack works with .zip and .jpa (the latter of which I’ve never heard of).

Any assistance is truly appreciated. This is a neighborhood website and I administer it for free and would hate to lose everything on it (not to mention the time I’ve spent bird-dogging this issue)…

Thanks,

Dave

Dave,

JoomlaPack would have been better before the bad upgrade than now. :) JoomlaPack is intended to make a complete backup of your site, files and database, and adds an installer to make restoring to a different server much easier (so it can't use Fantastico's backup). A partial restore is possible, but it is a manual operation - not for the faint of heart.

My guess is that you transferred the contents of the patch file to your site via ftp, the original files were installed via Fantastico, so now you have mixed file ownership and you're getting the JFolder error probably when installing something new? That's messy, but it isn't usually a "start over" situation. If you're getting the error on new installs, you're going to have trouble installing JoomlaPack.

dlb wrote:

If you're getting the error on new installs, you're going to have trouble installing JoomlaPack.

Thank you so much for the explanation. While it's good to know I won't have to start over, manually installing bits and pieces does not sound fun :-)

So it sounds like I could use JoomlaPack to back up what I have and then pull what I can from the .zip file (back-up) and upload back into a newly installed Joomla.

Any other words of wisdom are greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Dave

Dave,

From your description, I think the problem is mixed file ownership. Your host support may be able to help you with that. You want all the files owned by the same user. If it is your http user, then you don't use Joomla!'s ftp layer. If the files are owned by your ftp user, then you need to enable Joomla!'s ftp layer.

Nicholas wrote a tutorial on file ownership and permissions here. It isn't an easy read, but it will help you understand what happened.

Great! Thank you much! :D :D

You're welcome. :)