I have been asked to try and sort out a joomla 3 site that hasn't been updated for a long time (version 3.6.5). My intention is to create a new Joomla 5 site and migrate the contents. I have access to the backend and cpanel on the server.
I do not wish to update the working live site in case that takes it down so I installed Akeeba Backup (free version as it's not my site but can install pro if necessary and then uninstall later) , created a backup and downloaded it via cpanel file manager (i don't have access to ftp but I can get that if necessary).
I copied the backup file and kickstart.php to my localhost development server on XAMPP. The backup file was unzipped by kickstart but when the installation script (localhost/<foldername>/installation/index.php tried to run I had an error - (it was in Welsh, my default language for the browser, and so the error below is my translation not necessarily what would appear in an English version)
This page is not working at this time
localhost cannot deal with this request at this time
HTTP ERROR 500
RENEW
Can you suggest what could be causing this issue or diagnostic steps I can take.