I've had my website for many years; it has been through Joomla V1.5, 16, 2.5 & 3.x releases over the years. I use it much less now than I used to but it is still a good reference.ย
Recently I saw the message about support for Joomla 3.10 ending, and I need to move across to Joomla 4 no problem; I've survived this process several times. I made a conscious decision to simplify the sitre at the same time and reduce the number of extensions used, to just 3:
- Akeeba backup (which has saved me a few times)
- Phoca gallery (my front page has a Phoca gallery slideshow)
- Weblinks
So going through the site I found several extensions that I didn't even know were there, and slowly removed them. I had some templates that wouldn't install, but maybe I could ignore them.
The guide says, go to components -> ~Joomla update. Great; it wasn't there. Search google and try all the usual fixes; none made a difference. And I read somewhere (which I expect isn't actually true) that you can't upgrade without it.ย
OK, brave decision. Backup the database; make a copy into my home PC using xampp; and make a second, clean install of 3.10.11.
- Clean install of joomla 3.10.11 with no data;
- Database = j3clean
- Table prefix=โj3_โ (same as old database
- Copy over the โmediaโ and โimagesโ folders in htdocs
- Install com_weblinks v3.9.0 into the clean site
- Copy over weblinks from old to new database:
- Export old database j3_weblinks to a file
- Drop new database table j3_weblinks
- Import that file to j3test database
- Copy over article content from old to new database:
- Export old database j3_content to a file
- Drop new database table j3_content
- Import that file to j3test database
- Copy over article and weblink categories from old to new database:
- Export old database j3_categories to a file
- Drop new database table j3_categories
- Import that file to j3test database
- Copy over menu types from old to new database:
- Export old database j3_menutypes to a file
- Drop new database table j3_menutypes
- Import that file to j3test database
- Menus are harder, because j3_menu includes the administrator menus as well as the content menus
- Export old database and new database j3_menu tables for safety
- In old database, remove all menu table records that are not part of mainmenu, topmenu, g8njjmenu
- Go to new (j3clean) database j3_menu table; edit the id fields for any ids that conflict with ids found in the old database table. Change any others that have parent_id set to a changed id. (we only had to edit ids 10, 22)
- Go to old database j3_menu table
- Select operations
- Copy table to j3clean.j3_menu; copy data only and autoincrement
- Edit the author of all pages and categories to be myself in the "new database:
- Find my user id (from user manager) in this case 473
- Open the new database "j3clean" using phpmyadmin
- in the "j3_content" table: use a sql update query to change "created_by" and "modified_by" fields to 473 for all records
- in the "j3_categories" table_ use a sql update query to change "created_user_id" and "modified_user_id" fields to 473 for all records
- In the joomla administrator page, open then save& close all categories
- Assign all pages to "protostar" template"
- Recreate modules (I didn't have many so the easiest way was just to create new ones)
- At this point, components -> joomla update was still there.ย
- Install phoca gallery and phoca gallery slide slow plugins
- go back to phpmyadmin and use "operations" to copy the "phocagallery" and phocagallery categories" table from the old site to the empty ones
- Then I was able to update to joomla 4.3, and install the new Casseiopia template
Whatever was broken, don't do it again!