Joomla! Forum - community, help and support

Hello. I recently had a great site working in a test sub-directory. I followed the directions to move it to the root directory to replace my older site. I was using FTP Commander, and I believe that the FTP program missed some files in the copy over. Not realizing this, I wiped away my initial installation (I know, stupid, but I didn't think an FTP program could botch a simple copy). I then was coming up with files missing apparently. I recreated a few of these as they came up missing (php50x.php for example). Now I just get: Unable to load session storage class: database when I try to load either the site or the administrator back end. I found one other post on this forum (http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f ... 96&start=0). I tried basically everything they suggest here. Someone else seemed to have a similar problem with complete sets of files not being transferred over, and they resolved by switching to FileZilla. I have now switched to FileZilla which seems much better.

I found someone who had almost an identical error, also stemming from the FTP Commander:
http://www.howtojoomla.net/2006092217/h ... new-server

Her solution was to basically back track and try again. Clearly I am unable to do this as all I have left is basically corrupted files.

I apologize for confusing information etc. in this post as I am a newbie.


Release version: 1.5.3

Localhost – My webhost (Lunar Pages) installed all of this through Fantastico??


Your OS: Windows XP

What you have tried to solve the issue: Different data input you have tried, changing settings,

What searches you have done/information that may be related:

Is .htaccess file in use? : Yes, or at least there is an .htaccess file.

Thank you in advance to anyone who can help.

Repair your database, and urgently update to the latest secure version which at the moment is: 1.5.9

My apologies - I just checked on my webhost, and it looks like I am already up at 1.5.9 - I just installed 2 weeks ago, so this appears to be current.

Again, apologies for my newbie status, but how does one repair a database? I will dig around for that some more.

Thanks to everyone!

Joe

Also, remember I can't get into administrator back end either - I get the same message there as well.

Thanks!

Hi Everyone,

I have resolved my own issue. For anyone who comes along after me:

- Use FileZilla as FTP. I used FTP Commander, and that seemed to be the root of my problems - I think it was dropping files

- If you can install in your final destination directory, go ahead and do so instead of going through the headache of migrating.

Here's how I fixed it:

- I backed up my SQL database. I am a newbie, so I muddled through this. I stumbled into PHPmyadmin. I did this through the SQL databases feature in my webhost's cpanel. There is a function to copy a database. I was able to export a backup as a text file on to my desktop.

- If you haven't already, also copy all of your existing joomla files on to your hard drive - we know these are kind of tanked, but I was able to manually put some things back in from these files.

- I then uninstalled Joomla through my Fantastico on my webhost. This will wipe Joomla and your SQL database (hence the need for the backup....). I also cleared out pretty much everything from my public_html directory to avoid any conflicts from old files etc. - a clean slate.

- I then reinstalled Joomla into my main directory. In my case I just left the directory field blank. I created a user password etc.

- Joomla now worked as it had at my very first beginning. My next step was to try to link it back to my old data in the SQL database.

- I went back into my SQL database on cpanel. I created a new database, and a new user, and applied the new user to the new database.

- I then opened the database I had just created and imported the data from my exported text file on my desktop.

- Then I went in to the configuration.php file and changed:

var $user = 'newusername';
var $password = 'newpassword';
var $db = 'newSQLdatabasename';

where the existing fields will represent the new joomla database that was created during the intsall. I changed these to the database and username I had just created.

When I went to preview, my site data was generally back up - just using the default template.

At this point, I was able to start copying back in some files from my Joomla files back up. For example, I copied my entire specific template file into the templates folder on the server. Immediately my template was applied. This meant I did not have to reinstall the template and reconfigure. I could just copy the files into the appropriate directories. Same thing for modules etc.

I found this post helpful for understanding this rebuild process:

http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?p=1417076

I hope someone else finds this useful. I spent 4 or 5 hours trying to find a solution to the error I was getting, and about 20 minutes rebuilding everything and linking to the old data.....

Thanks!

Joe

Hi Joe
Just to encourage you that your post has indeed been of immense value as I've just run into an almost similar problem today while trying to mirror a site. Ironically I used FZ to do the original upload but forgot to check the 'Failed transfers' section before closing it out & rebooting so am having to do folder uploads again to try & resolve it. BUT at least your post encourages me that this should resolve the issue hopefully & I'll not be wasting half my day (again!!) trying to fix the endless problems a simple copy shouldn't be causing

Thanks.