The Joomla! Forum ™

So I was like ever so many people that had the serious backend issues with the admin not showing up and tried most of the solutions users had posted to NO AVAIL. So I decided to dig deeper and start looking for the offending issues. Replicate the steps below for a good chance at getting back in charge of your site:

1. Using common sense upload a fresh install of the 2.5.4 full package via FTP, overwrite all, dont overwrite your theme if your modifying the base theme. Dont upload installation folder.
2. Step into your phpmyadmin.
3. Find and disable ALL of your added extensions i.e jos_extensions, set enabled to 0.
4. Go ahead to database root, check all, optimize tables, commit
5. delete your browsers cookies, cache ect
6. cross fingers
7. login and see what happens.

I dont usually post here but after lets see...1 month of not having access I figured I would offer this up for other people.

In the future I will not be using the "auto upgrade" built-in, I suggest you do not either.

When a newer version comes along, follow these steps to update:

1. wait a few days or a week and check forums for any new problems popping up.
2. create an akeeba or similar backup
3. disable extensions that are not core
4. manually ftp update
5. check login works
6. re-enable extensions 1 at a time and check site functionality and login functionality/blank pages

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