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Site Restoration

#15614 Session write path error for 1.5 restores

Posted in ‘Site restoration’
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Environment Information

PHP version
n/a
CMS Type
Other
CMS Version
n/a
Backup Tool Version
n/a
Kickstart version
n/a

Latest post by nicholas on Tuesday, 02 April 2013 05:28 CDT

Tuesday, 02 April 2013 04:18 CDT

allisterf
Mandatory information about my setup:

Have I read the related troubleshooter articles above before posting (which pages?)? Yes
Have I searched the tickets before posting? Yes
Have I read the documentation before posting (which pages?)? Yes
Joomla! version: (1.5)
PHP version: (5.3 on both the backup and restore hosts)
MySQL version: (5.5.30-log )
Host: (optional, but it helps us help you)
Akeeba Backup version which took the backup: (3.4.3)
Kickstart version used to extract the backup: (The restore pages say Akeeba Backup Installer 3.4.3, though the restore script used was from kickstart-core-3.6.0)

Description of my issue:
While I never seem to have problems restoring a joomla 2.5 backup onto a new server, I'm having trouble getting any 1.5 joomla backup to restore.

I'm taking the backup with the compatible 3.4.3 version of Akeeba Backup for the 1.5 sites (pro version). But, when I restore, I get the "Your session write path and the installation directory are not writable. One of them must be writable for the installation to continue."

Both these files are writable at 755, and changing them to 777 makes them fail on my server.

I did see a suggestion on one of your responses to another user to try:
Create an empty text file named storagedata.dat
Upload it into your installation directory
Give the installation/storagedata.dat file 0777 permissions

Is this what I need to do? is there a reason why 1.5 and 2.5 restores onto the same server work differently (the latter is successful and the former bombs out.

Thanks for your help,

Allister

Tuesday, 02 April 2013 04:26 CDT

nicholas
Yes, this is what you have to do: create an empty text file called storagedata.dat and upload it to the installation directory, then give it 0777 permissions.

The Joomla! 1.5 restorations use the older restoration script called ABI (Akeeba Backup Installer). It had some limitations and couldn't allow you to easily work around session save issues on your host. OK, ABI is old. It's four years old, to be exact. Let's just say that my PHP prowess of four years ago, when I was only working part time as a developer, was nowhere near what I can achieve now.

The Joomla! 2.5 restorations –using backups generated by Akeeba Backup 3.7.3 and later– use a different restoration script, called ANGIE (Akeeba Next Generation Installer Engine). Guess what is the first thing I redesigned in the new installer script? That session storage code. First, ANGIE is much better capable of figuring out if your session storage path is writeable or not. While ABI would fall back to using the storagedata.dat file in 90% of cases, ANGIE will seldom resort to that measure. The other improvement is that the storagedata.dat is now stored inside the installation/tmp directory which can be given 0777 permissions without bricking the entire installer. Finally, ANGIE is way smarter than ABI. Instead of having you open your FTP programme and make you do the hard work yourself it will ask you for the FTP connection information and try giving the tmp directory the 0777 permissions automatically. Yep, ANGIE definitely shows off that added four years of experience writing software for the web.

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!

Tuesday, 02 April 2013 05:00 CDT

allisterf
Okay - did that. Created the file inside the installation directory after it is unpacked. Gave the file 777. Re-ran /installation/index.php, but still getting the same session path errors. Tried clicking 'NEXT' anyway, but getting the database no file definitions error.

Allister

Tuesday, 02 April 2013 05:08 CDT

nicholas
Please try clearing the browser's cache and quit the browser. Delete the installation/storagedata.dat file and upload a new empty text file under that name. Give it 0777 permissions. Then open your browser. Do not run Kickstart again. Just visit http://www.example.com/installation/index.php where www.example.com is your site. You should be able to proceed without the session path error.

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!

Tuesday, 02 April 2013 05:16 CDT

allisterf
Yep - that did it! Thanks Nicholas.

Allister

Tuesday, 02 April 2013 05:28 CDT

nicholas
You're welcome, Allister :)

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!

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