site won't load Topic is solved

[JillC]

Can't access the site at all, nor the backend. I have no idea how long it has been like this. How can I find out what version it is running? I think it was updated more than a year ago, but can't find any backup on my system. Can you help me get started with troubleshooting please?

[toivo]

Do you have access to the cPanel, provided by your host?

Have you contacted the support team of the host?

What is the URL of this website?

[JillC]

Yes, I have cpanel access.
Have not contacted the hosting company. I figured they'd tell me to upload a backup.
I can access a test html page - that's all.
Site is timbatreet.com

[JillC]

Also, cannot run fpa-en.php

[sozzled]

So, let's summarise:

• You can't tell us anything about the website (e.g. what version of J! you were running, what version of PHP you were running, what software you may have installed, etc.).
• You don't think you have a site backup.
• You can't access the front-end or the backend and you haven't contacted the webhosting company.
• The site, for all practical purposes, is dead and without a backup it's pretty much six feet under the ground.

I would reach out to your webhosting company for help. Maybe they can resurrect it or maybe it's unrevivable. With cPanel access you may be able to salvage a few things (e.g. images and some text) and use those to rebuild your site again from scratch, if that's your only option.

UPDATE: With a bit of luck and some careful snooping around, your website was running J! 2.5.6 which means the J! software was probably last updated around June 2012 (when the software was released). In other words, the website is about 9 years old and it's probably reliant upon PHP 5.x; there's a good chance that your webhosting provider doesn't offer PHP 5.6 in which case you're pretty much out of options there.

It is possible, if you know what you're doing, to salvage the filesystem and the database tables using cPanel, attempt to restore the site on another environment that supports PHP 5.6, update the software to J! 3.x—although that could take you a few days—and then restore the website back on the original server. There are a lot of steps involved if that's the approach you wanted to pursue. In the final analysis, however, the decision to go that way is entirely yours and has to be based on whether it's worth the effort.

It's also a pretty big "ask" to expect a self-help forum like this one to go through each step with you. The first step (and the first hurdle to overcome) is asking your webhosting provider if they still offer PHP 5.6.

The current version of the FPA tool won't work with PHP versions before PHP 5.6. There are a few older versions of the FPA that you may be able to find that work with with older versions of PHP. I'm guessing that your website relied upon something that existed before PHP 5.6 and that's why the current release of the FPA tool didn't run. However, this still does not fully explain why you couldn't run the FPA tool.

[JillC]

I was 95% certain this site had been upgraded to Joomla 3 but in the meantime I found the PHP version is 5.3 so I will check the other sites running on this setup to see if they will fall over with a change to PHP. Anyway, thanks for your help. That gives me a starting point.

[sozzled]

You're welcome. I'm not saying the situation is hopeless. There are always things you can try. The question is whether it's worth the effort and there's only one person who can answer that question, isn't there?

If you'd like to discuss what options you may have available to you, I'm happy to give you an hour or so of my time (at no charge). I'm not saying I can help (and I'm certainly not offering myself to attempt to fix this problem for you) but I have a better-than-even record in website "necromancy" If you would like to teleconference with me you may contact me.

I do not use this forum to solicit work; I have never done that and I never will.

[JillC]

ok, thanks, I'll see what I can do first and get back to you.

[sozzled]

No problem. I will say, with some confidence, that using PHP 5.6 won't fix a broken website and it's unlikely to break other J! 2.5 or J! 3.x websites you currently have. PHP 5.6 will, however, allow you to use the FPA tool; that's about the best you can hope for at this time.

[JillC]

Please mark as resolved. The index.php file was corrupted and the htaccess file. I replaced both from my old backup and everything is back to normal.

[toivo]

The index.php file was corrupted

A "corrupted" index.php file is a sign that the website has been tampered with, which usually means that the site has been hacked, especially when the site has not been kept uptodate.

Go to the Security subforum and read about best practice, how to keep the website secure.