Migrate Joomla 2.5 With JomSocial 2.8.x to Joomla 3 and JomSocial 3.0.x

Revision as of 13:37, 20 June 2013 by Eric Tracz (Talk | contribs)

Preparation

Before doing anything major to your site, always create a full site backup (files + database). A few minutes (literarily) can potentially save you hours of headaches and a poorly- or non-functioning site until the issues have been resolved. Here's a short video (under 6 minutes) We recommend that you use this extension for maintaining backups: Akeeba Backup. We have prepared a short tutorial video (under 6 minutes) showing how to backup your site and restore it in case of emergency.

Be assured that

  1. Upgrading JomSocial will never delete community information that is stored in the database, such as profile fields, friends, avatars, images, videos, etc. In other words, everything on your community will stay as is.
  2. It will not interfere with non-JomSocial database tables.

WARNING

  • All template customizations which do not follow our template override instructions will be deleted.
  • All template overrides need to be updated; otherwise you will have a crippled JomSocial with limited JomSocial 3 functionality. Please consult your template developer(s) for updates.
  • All modifications to any file in /components/com_community and /administrator/components/com_community will be deleted.
  • Third party extensions that rely on hacking JomSocial template/core code to work, will likely fail after the upgrade. You will have to redo the hacks (documenting your hacks for personal reference would always help you greatly in the future).
  • Always consult third-party developers for updated version of the plugins that are designed to work with JomSocial.

Starting the Migration

  1. Again, make sure the backup of the entire site is done.
  2. Navigate to: Extensions > Extensions Manager, select Manage and uninstall everything that is third party and not native Joomla. That means all templates, plugins, modules, components. Of course including JomSocial.
  3. Make sure there are no 3rd party extensions left and that you indeed have a 'clean' Joomla site.
  4. Open a new tab and go to Joomla.org site and download the update package. The latest Joomla 3 update packages can be found here Joomla 3 Upgrade Packages
  5. Right click on the latest Stable Update Package and 'Copy Link Address'.
  6. Go back to the tab with your Joomla backend open. Navigate to: Extensions > Extension Manager: Install, in the last field 'Install from URL' paste the copied URL and click Install.
  7. Wait for your site to get upgraded. It should reload and show you the status of the upgrade in Joomla 3 backend.
  8. Install JomSocial.
  9. Install the rest of extensions that you wish to have on your site.

It really is that simple! ;)

Here you can see a video on Migrating and Upgrading JomSocial:

Third Party Modules and Plugins

Please consult the developer for an updated version, if necessary. Always good practice to check whether there are updated versions available.

Translations

With the new features and enhancements which are part of the new JomSocial releases, there will be a number of new language strings in JomSocial and perhaps changes to the already existing strings.

The Frontend language file is stored in:

  • /language/en-Gb/en-Gb.com_community.ini

The Backend language file is stored in:

  • /administrator/language/en-Gb/en-Gb.com_community.ini

The Modules language file is stored in:

  • /language/en-Gb

The Applications & Plugins language file is stored in:

  • /administrator/language/en-Gb

Known Upgrade Errors

There was an error uploading this file to the server.
Some shared servers limit the size of uploaded files to a mere 2MB. The JomSocial component exceeds this limit so you will have to increase two (2) php.ini settings to be at least 6MB. If you are not sure on how to do this, please consult your webhosting provider for assistance.

  1. upload_max_filesize = 6M  ; Maximum allowed size for uploaded files.
  2. post_max_size = 6M ; Maximum size of POST data that PHP will accept.