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Site Restoration

#39797 index.php is downloaded instead of opening the site after kickstart migration

Posted in ‘Site restoration’
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Environment Information

PHP version
8.1
CMS Type
Joomla!
CMS Version
3.10.12
Backup Tool Version
8.3.3 Pro
Kickstart version
n/a

Latest post by nicholas on Monday, 13 November 2023 01:26 CST

Sunday, 12 November 2023 03:42 CST

[email protected]

Hi,

I was having issues upgrading a joomla site from 3.10.12 to 4.4.0

Every time I try to complete the upgrade the JS console alert "ERROR: Could not open /LICENSE.txt for writing" shows up and stops the installer.

Despite changing the LICENSE.txt file to 777 and using Admin tools to check permissions etc  I still could not get past this error so cannot upgrade the site on that server.

I therefore decided to move the site to another server complete the migration there and then move the migrated site back to the live server.

However,

After moving the .jpa file and kickstart.php file and going through the installer the site wont load via the domain, instead it downloads the index.php file.

I have tried clearing the cache,disabling the.htaccess file / php.ini file and replacing with a standard joomla htaccess file but nothing seems to work.

No errors are showing on debug = 1 in configuration.php

Appreciate any help you can provide.

Edited by [email protected] on 2023-11-12 03:44 CST

Monday, 13 November 2023 01:26 CST

nicholas

This has to be an issue in the .htaccess file, namely an AddHandler or SerHandler directive which is incompatible with the new host. That's really the only user-configurable thing which can break parsing PHP files as executable code and have them delivered as text files.

Also keep in mind that on some servers the change to the .htaccess file may not be applied immediately, but take a few seconds to minutes to be applied.

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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