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Hi

I have several sites some using Joomla v1.x some v1.5.x and until the past few days have been running successfully. I have not used 1.7 or 2.5 as I have not wanted to learn the new versions due to time constraints but also because as far as I was aware using the older versions would not be an issue.

However, in the past few days I have found that on one of my web hosts, the sites are showing signs of failure. Mainly Menu items not being displayed, on the site as well in Admin, but also Admin features such as the Article Access Level. One one site which is on v1.x whole articles are not being displayed on the site even though they are visible in Admin.

It appears it could be a PHP version issue, as the sites that are having these issues are on a Web Host that uses PHP v5.3 while my second Web host is using PHP v5.2 and these are error free.

Also I have read that Templates built prior to Jan 2010 will be prone to failures such as these.

I am guessing that my second web host will upgrade to PHO v5.3 shortly so I need a solution.

The problem is that to eliminate these issues it would appear that I have to upgrade all of them to 2.5 but this will mean a massive amount of work to not only upgrade but also modifying the templates to look the same as before. Weeks of work as far as I can tell.

But am I missing something? Can anyone help me understand the problems surrounding older versions of Joomla and latest versions of PHP, or am I seeing a problem in another area completely.

Normally I know what to look for when I have a problem with Joomla, but for this I am stumped and would really appreciate some guidance.

Thanks in advance

David

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http://www.zoomstudio.co.uk
Rules Stifle Creativity

Yes, there have been issues when a webhost has upgraded to PHP 5.3 with older versions of Joomla.

It might be a colossal pain, but I would migrate your site over to 2.5 as soon as you can. At least further upgrades will be easier with the new one-click upgrader feature.

Wish I had better news for you

_________________
The burned hand teaches best... - The Two Towers

http://webdesign.moonfireartstudios.com Joomla web design for small businesses

In the attached file you will find some files patched to help Joomla 1.0 running over Php 5.3. Unpack the zip locally, find on your server the corresponding files, and overwrite them with the attached ones. More on this subject you can found on http://Joomla-tips.org.

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Tips on Joomla - http://joomla-tips.org
My LinkedIn profile - http://ro.linkedin.com/in/webgobe
Like a fine wine - getting better over time!

Thank you both for your answers.



I have no objections to investing the time to upgrading or learning 2.5 but as far as I can tell the templates, (and components, plugins and modules) on the older sites will become useless with 2.5 unless they happen to be compatible. As each of the site's is customized to the clients specification it would appear I have to spend an enormous amount of time finding and customizing a new template to make it look and work like the old site. All for free as I can hardly charge the client.

And then when V3 comes do it all again out and so on each time a new version is released! That is an incredible amount of free maintenance just to keep up with Joomla versions. Or am I missing something?

David

_________________
http://www.zoomstudio.co.uk
Rules Stifle Creativity

It's usually just some minor changes to make in order to make a 1.5 template compatable with 2.5. They had an instructional article about in a couple of months ago in the Joomla Magazine http://magazine.joomla.org/issues/Issue-May-2012/item/740-How-to-convert-Joomla-15-template-to-Joomla-25



Why the heck not? Upgrades should never be covered in a standard web design contract unless they occur within a close period of time to the website's launch. They will be getting a better functioning website, and more security from hackers. No reason why they shouldn't pay for it.



I am pretty sure that the jump from 2.5 to 3.0 will be no where near as drastic as the jump from 1.5 to 1.6. The core development team is aware of how hard it was on so many users, and they have determined not to let that happen again.
Your templates should be okay in the future, and upgrading will be a whole lot simpler. Even if not, 2.5 is supported for another year at least.

_________________
The burned hand teaches best... - The Two Towers

http://webdesign.moonfireartstudios.com Joomla web design for small businesses

Agree with MoonfireArt, with each Joomla release the migration was gradually easier. I have couple of sites migrated to 1.6 or 1.7, and since them keeping the pace with the version changes is a few clicks effort...

_________________
Tips on Joomla - http://joomla-tips.org
My LinkedIn profile - http://ro.linkedin.com/in/webgobe
Like a fine wine - getting better over time!

Thanks again guys for your input.

I decided to go for 2.5.4, uploaded a new fresh install to my server expecting it to be fine but no it was not. Front end was missing pages giving 404 error and no css styling on the page. This has never happened to me before on a fresh install.

After some digging I think I have found the cause. PHP v5.3 or 5.4 is causing errors on sites using Joomla 2.5.4 and 1.5.9.

My Web Host provides a PHP settings facility and I can select 5.2, 5.3 pr 5.4 for each site. As soon as I chose 5.2 (version 5.2.17) for the sites that were showing errors they cleared.

What I am most disappointed with is that Joomla 2.5.4 also needs to use 5.2 to function correctly or at least on my web host it does. The web server is Linux using Apache/2. This web host does not use cPanel but from what I can see their own Control Panel. My other web host does use cPanel and i cannot see any option to choose a PHP version so I will contact them to find out.

David

_________________
http://www.zoomstudio.co.uk
Rules Stifle Creativity

It must be your webhost. My Joomla 2.5.4 functions correctly on PHP 5.3

_________________
The burned hand teaches best... - The Two Towers

http://webdesign.moonfireartstudios.com Joomla web design for small businesses