Reinstalling Joomla site - PHP version differences??

ptwd · Post by **ptwd** » Sat Sep 17, 2016 7:21 pm

I must reinstall a Joomla site that I've been redesigning locally on WAMP. I need to update the local Joomla version (currently 3.5.1) and do a fresh install on the webhost, since it was recenly migrated to a new server and has become totally tangled up. So I want to do a fresh install and upload my local site using Akeeba backup, which has worked well in the past (when the webhost didn't mess things up).

My concern is the PHP version. The latest PHP 5 version is 5.6.25, but the webhost is running 5.6.24 and apparently has no plans to upgrade further at this time. I think I can download 5.6.24 from the PHP site, but I suspect I will have fewer problems locally if I use the latest version.

I'm wondering what problems there are likely to be if the PHP versions are slightly out of sync (between my local version and the webhost's version). In other words, does anyone know if restoring a site (using Akeeba) with the highest PHP version will contaminate or cause problems if it's restored to servers that use the next-to-highest PHP version?

I hope that makes sense. Sorry, I know this is probably more techy than this forum was intended for but I'm hoping someone here might have some insight about this.

Many thanks for any help you can offer.

Wendy

sozzled · Post by **sozzled** » Sat Sep 17, 2016 7:44 pm

I think I understand your question. You're asking if there might be problems by working in a locally hosted environment (using PHP 5.6.25, unknown MySQL version, unknown Apache version) before transferring the build to an internet-based website (using PHP 5.6.24, unknown MySQL version, unknown Apache version). Does that correctly summarise your question?

As far as the differences between PHP 5.6.24 and PHP 5.6.25 are concerned, they're fairly insignificant. As far as other environmental differences are concerned, I have probably written enough to fill a book on the subject; for example, see http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?t=925348. Only time will tell whether your approach will be trouble-free. From my limited experience, there's between a 30-70% probability that you will not have any problems with your implementation strategy (the probability of success increases if you have undertaken this kind of development work successfully before).

ptwd wrote:I suspect I will have fewer problems locally if I use the latest version.

It all depends on your top priority. Do you want to have a successful, working website on your PC that is not on the internet?

Good luck.

ribo · Post by **ribo** » Sat Sep 17, 2016 9:28 pm

You will not have any difference if you will have 5.6.24 or 5.6.25 if you will have and in these two versions the same php modules and the same values in php.ini . The difference in the versions is that every time the latest version is more secure or they fix some bugs in the newer version.

ribo · Post by **ribo** » Sat Sep 17, 2016 9:40 pm

ptwd wrote: but I suspect I will have fewer problems locally if I use the latest version.

You will not have fewer or less problems i you will use the latest php version or not. You will have problems if your server will not configured properly for joomla or your live server have issue with high recources, something that you can t check by your shelf in a shared hosting account.

ptwd · Post by **ptwd** » Mon Sep 19, 2016 5:35 pm

Many thanks for all your replies about this. Sozzled, thank you for your take on this. And Ribo, thank you for your comments too. I'm not terribly happy with the webhost that my client insists on staying with, and have had many problems with them. I will keep both your thoughts in mind as I continue to wade through this swamp. ;-)

More and more I'm finding it's not really possible to create and maintain a Joomla website without at some point, to some extent, having to deal with the nitty gritty server side of things. This is not something I'm very skilled in, nor do I want to put my head through a meatgrinder to learn it. I really like Joomla in many ways, but I wish it could be used as a separate entity without having to think about the server side of things quite so much. :-/

sozzled · Post by **sozzled** » Mon Sep 19, 2016 8:41 pm

The "secret" (to avoid wading through the morass of "webserver issues") is to do all one's development work in the same environment as where your production site will live. This is why I never use PC-hosted websites for development—I have written my thoughts about PC-hosted websites before.

ptwd · Post by **ptwd** » Mon Sep 19, 2016 9:06 pm

Sozzled: I hear you, but for me the skill gap goes beyond just PC versus webhost environment differences.

sozzled · Post by **sozzled** » Mon Sep 19, 2016 9:14 pm

Let me put it another way. To summarise my understanding of what you've written, it goes something like this:

1) You have a production website on a properly-hosted webhost somewhere. The production website uses a particular version of PHP, MySQL and Apache. You do not have to worry about which version of PHP, MySQL or Apache is running; this is done for you by the webhosting company. Everything works well; you are happy with your webhosting company.

2) You want to create a test site (basically a copy of your production site). You want make sure that your test site does not interfere with your production site. You want to make sure that, when you have finished your testing, you can copy your test site over to your production site.

Have I correctly summarised your situation? If I have misunderstood anything, please tell me what I have misunderstood.

leolam · Post by **leolam** » Tue Sep 20, 2016 2:54 am

sozzled wrote:The "secret" (to avoid wading through the morass of "webserver issues") is to do all one's development work in the same environment as where your production site will live. This is why I never use PC-hosted websites for development—I have written my thoughts about PC-hosted websites before.

I missed that link but read it with great interest. Your article is close to my heart and experience and in contrary what has said by others in that post we (my company) do develop on an online dedicated development server where we have dozens of sites in development on cheap $0,80/year ltd.domains (so not subdomains) and we value that the client can see progress and provide development guidance at all times.

Some stuff we develop first locally such as template(s) or initial staging of new extensions but as soon as we think they are viable for client input we load them online for review and input. It simply reduces development time or miscommunication with clients.

Same counts for my Bug Squad testing. We have a couple of these cheap domains online of a specific JBS-assigned server so we see behavior on a real online environment with is basically described [ur=https://gws-host.com/systems-technologyl]here[/url] and is a real operational system environment for our development @ testing. Our local Uniform servers are for 99% identical compiled but still the only real environment is online. The other big advantage is that we can show to clients that their new or migrated/upgraded site works well on our (proper compiled) servers and that their own hosting accounts is not compliant or is unstable etc etc. Reduces a great deal problems with deliveries/acceptance letters before final payment by clients.

I mentioned 'never on subdomains'. This is important in case you a) have not made a backup or b) did not download it/save in Cloud like S3 and for whatever reason you have to roll back your main account in root (bye bye development site in subdomain if no backup) or worse your image of your server.....

Hope this helps with directing OP is right direction with additional clarification?

Leo

ptwd · Post by **ptwd** » Tue Sep 20, 2016 3:43 am

Sozzled: Thanks, that would be a good summary, but I can't say I'm very happy with the hosting company (having one issue after another; some on their end, some on my end due to lack of serverside technical expertise). However, the client so far is firm that they want to stay with this webhost.

I had tried building the new site initially on this host's server in a separate webspace (so I found your comment about that interesting, Leo), but it got hacked and it was a nightmare (still not quite sure how it happened). So when a colleague helped me get set up on my PC, I have really enjoyed not having to deal with the host's servers.

We have upgraded the hosting plan in the hope that the better support will help me resolve the problems, but so far it hasn't worked out as I'd hoped. One problem solved leads to two more I must deal with.

Anyway, I'll try to check out your links and see if there's anything that will help me. But I have to admit I'm growing discouraged with the level of serverside technical skill I seem to have to have just to build a Joomla site, which I think is partly this webhost and parly Joomla itself. :-(

leolam · Post by **leolam** » Tue Sep 20, 2016 4:39 am

ptwd wrote:which I think is partly this webhost and parly Joomla itself. :-(

Your issue have nothing to do with your Joomla installation and all with a bad hosting environement. Please post output of http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=621&t=582860 for your online hosting service in the format described in the zip.

Who is your host? (nor for blaming but to see if I can discover more for you. We do have cPanel tuning/optimization/security packages btw so we do know a 'bit' (in combination with our specialized hosting services) where we talk about

Leo

sozzled · Post by **sozzled** » Tue Sep 20, 2016 7:40 am

Thanks for your kind words, @leo

sozzled · Post by **sozzled** » Tue Sep 20, 2016 7:42 am

ptwd wrote:I can't say I'm very happy with the hosting company (having one issue after another ... one problem solved leads to two more I must deal with.

As @leo wrote (more or less), what kind of problems are you having?

@ptwd: before I make any other suggestions about resolving your problem(s), I want to be absolutely clear that I have understood your situation. If I have misunderstood something, I should be grateful if you would kindly correct anything I have written. Thanks.

puneet85 · Post by **puneet85** » Tue Sep 20, 2016 8:51 am

Make sure what is the php version installed at your server.

And if you have installed it still changes are not getting reflected then restart your server.

Joomla does not install any other resources like php.

You need to install it.

leolam · Post by **leolam** » Tue Sep 20, 2016 8:57 am

puneet85 wrote:Make sure what is the php version installed at your server.

Welcome at the forums. Please read and digest what has been stated since your contribution makes little sense?

Leo

ptwd · Post by **ptwd** » Wed Sep 21, 2016 3:10 am

Thank you, Sozzled and Leo, for your continued support about this. I would rather not mention the name of the host here in the forum. I could PM you confidentially if you think it would help. The background of this situation is long and complicated and I had thought to spare you the details, but maybe it will help if I give more information since the problem seems to be bigger than I thought. Apologies for the long post, and thanks in advance for wading through it. If you think it's too long or detailed for the forum, let me know and I'll remove it. Even as long as it is, it's the Readers Digest version!

The site was in Joomla 1.5 when I came on board. I've been redeveloping the site from scratch in 3.x using WAMP, and relaunched it earlier this year. It's currently in 3.5.1 and I know it needs updating, but I've had so many other issues that I thought it best to get them sorted out first. (FYI: this host does not use cPanel. We do have the ability to install multiple websites, as well as subdomains.)

For the relaunch, I wiped the old site's webspace completely and created a "virgin" installation of Joomla 3.x. I uploaded the redesigned WAMP site using Akeeba backup (which worked perfectly with another webhost I use). However, the relaunch was a nightmare. It turned out the server configuration was somewhat out of date and caused problems that couldn't be fixed but only worked around (e.g. limited character set, mismatched PHP versions and other issues I can't recall off hand). The host's support was, shall we say, not entirely helpful. A colleague said later that it was a miracle I managed to get the site up and running at all, give the issues I had.

After talking with the client we decided to upgrade the client's hosting plan to get a higher level of support, and this has been somewhat helpful BUT not without a whole new set of problems. After the site was transferred to the upgraded server, I was unable to login to Joomla administrator. I discovered I could login only if I disabled a security extension that I installed before the move, but I had to re-enable it afterwards in order for its security to be active. Very annoying.

Thinking this issue was from moving to the new server, I decided to try uninstalling and re-installing it, hoping it would refit itself properly to the new server. I was able to uninstall it but couldn't reinstall it ...nor can I install any other extensions for that matter; nor does it matter if I'm installing from the web or from an uploaded Zip file. ("Warning: JFolder::create: Could not create folder.Path: /home/linweb06 ~ Error: Archive does not exist. Unable to find install package")

Another online search suggested it was a file/folder permissions issue. I know just enough about how to manage that stuff to know that I shouldn't try to manage that stuff. Another call to hosting support showed that the new server uses tighter security practices, which apparently explains why I can't install any extensions. They showed me how to change permissions with Filezilla, but said I'd have to check with the extension developer(s) as to which folders/files I would need to change. None of this sounds like a very workable ongoing system to me. My keyboard is getting a permanent dent from banging my head, and frankly I'd rather have my teeth drilled than have to work at this level of technical detail.

I had thought to bring my WAMP installation up to date to match the host's various versions, and then wipe the site again and reinstall from scratch. (I planned to do that for the move but it all happened too fast.) However, Sozzled you seem adamant that this is not the best solution, and at this point none of it seems to want to fall into place anyway. Interestingly, I had zero problems when I uploaded the WAMP site to another webhost I use (to show the client my progress) so perhaps it is possible to do this more simply, but it seems this is not a given. And unfortunately my client hasn't been open to changing web hosts.

On top all of these problems is that, despite having a programming background (from many years ago), most of my web experience is with the design side of HTML/CSS, Wordpress and Joomla. My knowledge of PHP, MySQL, databases and serverside-anything is minimal, and I really don't want to have to deal much with these areas directly. So I'm not sure how much of these problems is the webhost and how much is me. However, this is the second Joomla site in the last few years I've worked on where I've had to deal with the tech end more than I was comfortable, so I'm also growing rather discouraged with Joomla itself.

There you have my sordid story. :-( Again, my apologies for this being so long and complicated, and thank you for reading it through. I hope it provides useful information. Your help with this is very much appreciated!

ribo · Post by **ribo** » Wed Sep 21, 2016 6:02 am

As i understood you think that you have server issues and you can t update or install, etc. You can check system information-Folder Permissions if you have unwritable folders. Also please run Forum post assistant http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=621&t=582860 and copy-paste the results here to check it better

sozzled · Post by **sozzled** » Wed Sep 21, 2016 6:51 am

Thanks for your story.

ptwd wrote:Sozzled you seem adamant that this is not the best solution ...

That's not entirely correct.

The reason I asked you to confirm my understanding of the situation was fairly straightforward. You asked (in this topic) if there was any reason to conclude that using a local webhost with a different version of PHP, with (possibly) a different version of Apache server software and with (again, possibly) a different version of MySQL and (almost certainly) a whole different set of server configuration settings, if there might be any difficulties with your approach.

I haven't the slightest idea (based on what little I know). Certainly, this topic is reasonable to ask the questions but I don't know if you will get much useful information.

If, however, you are more interested in knowing how to transform your client's existing website on his/her own webhosted environment, that's an entirely differnent question and (in my opinion) probably should be dealt with in its own separate topic.

I don't know if you know how to copy your client's existing site and use your client's webhost to undertake your development activities. If you don't know, then that's a reasonable question to ask ... but not in this topic, please.

So, I'm sorry. I don't know if your [local PC-hosted] approach is the best way. I'm not being adamant about this. It's just not the way that I'd go about doing it.

sovainfo · Post by **sovainfo** » Wed Sep 21, 2016 8:10 am

ptwd wrote:More and more I'm finding it's not really possible to create and maintain a Joomla website without at some point, to some extent, having to deal with the nitty gritty server side of things. This is not something I'm very skilled in, nor do I want to put my head through a meatgrinder to learn it. I really like Joomla in many ways, but I wish it could be used as a separate entity without having to think about the server side of things quite so much. :-/

Hopefully you realize this is because you don't get what you pay for. In your case your customer doesn't.
There is no need to deal with the nitty gritty side of the server. Joomla requires a properly configured webserver that has write access to the webspace. It is the job of the hosting provider to deliver that! No need for you to know how to do that. Suggest to find a partner that knows the hosting business. Maybe he can convince your customer to turn to a provider that understands its business.

ptwd · Post by **ptwd** » Sun Sep 25, 2016 8:46 pm

Sorry to take so long getting back to this. It's been a bit of a crazy week.

sozzled wrote:
ptwd wrote:Sozzled you seem adamant that this is not the best solution ...
That's not entirely correct.
[...]
I don't know if your [local PC-hosted] approach is the best way. I'm not being adamant about this. It's just not the way that I'd go about doing it.

Okay, sorry if I misunderstood you. You just seemed pretty passionate about it. :-)

sozzled wrote:The reason I asked you to confirm my understanding of the situation was fairly straightforward. You asked (in this topic) if there was any reason to conclude that using a local webhost with a different version of PHP, with (possibly) a different version of Apache server software and with (again, possibly) a different version of MySQL and (almost certainly) a whole different set of server configuration settings, if there might be any difficulties with your approach.

I haven't the slightest idea (based on what little I know).

LOL Okay, fair enough. I started with a question that was about one little piece of a much bigger puzzle and wound up spilling the whole puzzle box here on the forum floor.

Based on some others' comments about this, it seems I might not have been asking the most relevant question anyway.

sozzled wrote:Certainly, this topic is reasonable to ask the questions but I don't know if you will get much useful information.

If, however, you are more interested in knowing how to transform your client's existing website on his/her own webhosted environment, that's an entirely differnent question and (in my opinion) probably should be dealt with in its own separate topic.

I don't know if you know how to copy your client's existing site and use your client's webhost to undertake your development activities. If you don't know, then that's a reasonable question to ask ... but not in this topic, please.

Thanks for your feedback about this. I'll see if I can focus my query better and repost. :-)

Wendy

ptwd · Post by **ptwd** » Sun Sep 25, 2016 8:57 pm

As I mentioned to Sozzled, sorry for taking so long to get back to this. This week has been a bit crazy.

sovainfo wrote: There is no need to deal with the nitty gritty side of the server. Joomla requires a properly configured webserver that has write access to the webspace. It is the job of the hosting provider to deliver that! No need for you to know how to do that.

Thank you for this. I will go back to the hosting provider and see what they say.

sovainfo wrote:Hopefully you realize this is because you don't get what you pay for. In your case your customer doesn't.
[...]
Suggest to find a partner that knows the hosting business. Maybe he can convince your customer to turn to a provider that understands its business.

Curiously, my client has been using this host for many years, for several different websites. It's just one of them that I'm working on at the moment. They've been quite happy with this host, but they have mostly been (a) dealing with a very high level (and priced) hosting plan for the other sites, and (b) others who have been managing those sites have a lot of knowledge of the server side of things, so perhaps they have simply been taking up the slack (which could explain the difference in my experience of the host). We'll see what they say when I insist that I shouldn't have to deal with the obstacles I've had. It's possible that the support person I spoke with wasn't giving me the best answers too, but another might respond differently.

Wendy

ptwd · Post by **ptwd** » Mon Sep 26, 2016 9:20 pm

Hi everyone. This is a follow-up about the installation problems part of this thread, in case someone else is having similar problems (even though it's only indirectly related to the topic title). I spoke with the host support again. It seems that due to the configuration of their cluster hosting platform, they are hearing about several people having problems with Joomla installations. It seems to have to do with file/folder permissions, and they are recommending that Joomla users go in and change these via SSH. So I will discuss this with the client and see what we need to do from here. Anyway, I thought it might be helpful to any readers of this thread to hear this information.

Again, thanks for all your help! :-)

leolam · Post by **leolam** » Tue Sep 27, 2016 4:25 am

Wendy, This would have been all so much easier and less effort for you if you follow up on what we are asking. We asked multiple times to post http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=621&t=582860 and we could have seen from that output what is wrong in the config of your Joomla server/site. Without that info it is dry swimming and a lot of wasted time. With that output posted we would know immediately what is wrong and could have advised you properly.

Leo

ptwd · Post by **ptwd** » Wed Sep 28, 2016 5:43 pm

Hi Leo, my sincere apologies. The situation at my end has been continually changing, including the nature and scope of the problem and how each Joomla installation is affected (there are 3 at the moment, each with different issues). When the chaos settles down a bit, I will get back to you with more information.

Thank you for your patience and assistance. :-)

Wendy

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Reinstalling Joomla site - PHP version differences??

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