Can't Access /administrator... just downloads file

[jonnygiggle]

I've tried every forum response and every possible google'd solution, and I can't access the admin of a joomla 3.5 install. When i go to /administrator is just downloads the index.php file. Frontend of the site and all frontend links work just fine

The install is in a subdir, but through an addon domain. SEF work just fine, the htaccess file is all correct, and the conf file is point and configured all correct.

I'm out of options, and it's probably something simple. PLEASE HELP!

[sozzled]

For the sake of clarifying your question, are you attempting to use J! 3.5.x or are you attempting to use J! 3.8.5? These two versions are different.

[jonnygiggle]

For the sake of clarifying your question, are you attempting to use J! 3.5.x or are you attempting to use J! 3.8.5? These two versions are different.

3.5.0

[sozzled]

J! 3.5.0 is outdated and not supported. J! 3.5.0 was released two years ago (in March 2016) and there have been 20 releases of the J! CMS in that time. The current, supported, stable version of J! is version 3.8.5. I suggest you use the latest version.

[jonnygiggle]

I have a redesign/rebuild in progress, moving away from joomla actually. This site was moved to a new hosting accouht, and information still needs to be updating and posted, while the new site is being developed.

Should I still invest the time updating J!, which could potential break other things (components, etc)

Or is there a simple fix to allow access to the admin in its currrny state of 3.5.0

[sozzled]

If you cannot access your J! 3.5.0 website then you cannot login to the Administrator/backend of the site and, therefore, you cannot update to J! 3.8.5. When you say you "cannot access your /administrator site—you just get the index.php "downloaded" this doesn't actually make a lot of sense.

Because we cannot see what you can see (because we don't know where your Joomla 3.5.0 site is located) this makes it difficult to diagnose the problem.

It's possible, because the website is contained as a sub-folder of another site, that the "other" site is causing the problem. Have you considered moving the site from the sub-folder of another site up to the same folder level as the "other" site? Is that possible?

It may be possible to salvage this site but it may take some time because we don't know anything much (except that it's J! 3.5.0) about your website.

[AMurray]

It sounds (to me anyway) like the php file is being treated as text rather than as a script to be executed on the server. If it opens as text or prompts to download the file, then that's a server configuration problem.

Posting the FPA would help (and would confirm my suspicion: the FPA (Forum Post Assistant) is here: viewtopic.php?f=621&t=582860.

Can you run any sort of PHP script - if you can execute the fpa-en.php file and it works as it should then the other issue is probably something up with Joomla itself but if you can't execute the FPA script (and it shows as text, the same as Joomla) then it's more likely a server configuration issue.

I would also like to know how you transferred the site from one host to the other (most Joomla users would use Akeeba Backup, and Kickstart).

The fact you're on Joomla 3.5.x doesn't help (maybe you should have updated before moving the site) but the way to avoid breaking components (would happen in pretty rare instances) is to ensure the extension is compatible with the Joomla version, and to update the said extensions before updating Joomla.

However all this is meaningless until you get a functioning site, and yes I would invest time and energy in updating it because of the security implications, and your host might have issues about you running out of date software on their servers (they have the equal obligation to keep the server software updated from their side).

[AMurray]

Another thing to check is on the new server - what version of PHP are you running. 3.5.x runs on PHP 5.3.x to through PHP 7.x. If the PHP version was the issue I would be expecting other error messages and not the file opening as text. (At least the PHP errors would indicate the PHP script is trying to execute).

[jonnygiggle]

The frontend of the site works, all the links work. The only issue is the admin side. Currently running php 5.4

I just ran the fpa, and that alone was helpful.. since the J! config is actually 3.6.4.

Thanx AMurray

[jonnygiggle]

[13-Mar-2018 13:27:13 UTC] PHP Notice: Undefined index: backpro in /home/i66nu0w9hufg/public_html/mainflchildren/templates/rox_metro/html/modules.php on line 215

Joomla! Instance :: Joomla! 3.6.4-Stable (Noether) 21-October-2016
Joomla! Platform :: Joomla Platform 13.1.0-Stable (Curiosity) 24-Apr-2013
Joomla! Configured :: Yes | Writable (644) | Owner: --protected-- . (uid: 1/gid: 1) | Group: --protected-- (gid: 1) | Valid For: 3.6
Configuration Options :: Offline: 0 | SEF: 1 | SEF Suffix: 0 | SEF ReWrite: 1 | .htaccess/web.config: Yes | GZip: 0 | Cache: 0 | CacheTime: 15 | CacheHandler: file | CachePlatformPrefix: 0 | FTP Layer: 0 | Proxy: N/A | LiveSite: https://flchildren.org/ | Session lifetime: 15 | Session handler: database | Shared sessions: N/A | SSL: N/A | FrontEdit: N/A | Error Reporting: default | Site Debug: 0 | Language Debug: 0 | Default Access: 1 | Unicode Slugs: 0 | dbConnection Type: mysqli | Database Credentials Present: Yes

Host Configuration :: OS: Linux | OS Version: 2.6.32-773.26.1.lve1.4.46.el6.x86_64 | Technology: x86_64 | Web Server: Apache | Encoding: gzip | Doc Root: --protected-- | System TMP Writable: Yes | Free Disk Space : 1520.29 GiB |

PHP Configuration :: Version: 5.6.32 | PHP API: cgi-fcgi | Session Path Writable: Yes | Display Errors: | Error Reporting: 32767 | Log Errors To: error_log | Last Known Error: 13th March 2018 13:27:13. | Register Globals: | Magic Quotes: | Safe Mode: | Open Base: | Uploads: 1 | Max. Upload Size: 2M | Max. POST Size: 8M | Max. Input Time: -1 | Max. Execution Time: 30 | Memory Limit: 128M

MySQL Configuration :: Version: 5.6.36-cll-lve (Client:5.6.36) | Host: --protected-- (--protected--) | Collation: utf8_general_ci (Character Set: utf8) | Database Size: 63.29 MiB | #of Tables:  482

PHP Extensions :: Core (5.6.32) | date (5.6.32) | ereg () | libxml () | openssl () | pcre () | sqlite3 (0.7-dev) | zlib (2.0) | bz2 () | calendar () | ctype () | curl () | hash (1.0) | filter (0.11.0) | ftp () | gettext () | gmp () | SPL (0.2) | iconv () | pcntl () | readline (5.6.32) | Reflection ($Id: 5f15287237d5f78d75b19c26915aa7bd83dee8b8 $) | session () | standard (5.6.32) | shmop () | SimpleXML (0.1) | mbstring () | tokenizer (0.1) | xml () | cgi-fcgi () | bcmath () | dom (20031129) | fileinfo (1.0.5) | gd () | imagick (3.4.3RC4) | imap () | inotify (0.1.1) | intl (1.1.0) | json (1.2.1) | exif (1.4 $Id: 1c8772f76be691b7b3f77ca31eb788a2abbcefe5 $) | mcrypt () | mysql (1.0) | mysqli (0.1) | PDO (1.0.4dev) | pdo_mysql (1.0.2) | pdo_sqlite (1.0.1) | Phar (2.0.2) | posix () | soap () | xmlreader (0.1) | xmlrpc (0.51) | xmlwriter (0.1) | mhash () | Zend Engine (2.6.0) |
Potential Missing Extensions :: zip | suhosin |

[AMurray]

Are you sure that's the whole report; it looks rather brief to me and doesn't seem to contain everything it normally should.

Your PHP is also 5.6.x (that's a good thing...) and not 5.4 as your question stated (which is out of date, and end of life).

If the site is half working, and the fact you got the FPA to run, says that PHP on your server is executing, but I am out of ideas as to why the front-end works, but the back-end loads only as text and not executing.

[sozzled]

Yeah: the FPA report is incomplete.

Looks like error coming from the site template: possibly requires the OP to contact Rockettheme to see if there's a fix for it. I don't think we have the information needed to understand why the OP cannot "access" the Joomla administrator site.

[jonnygiggle]

The site is installed in a subfolder, but with an addon domain, I've tried editing the htaccess to point to the subfolder, and as the root... neither works.