Creative Online Marketing, Link Building and Ecommerce

Joomla upgrade from 1.0 to 1.5 can be an ordeal. There are tons of sites that provide info on how to do this but very few seem to really nail down the BIG TICKET items - the stuff that is almost guaranteed to give you problems. At least I didn't find any. So here you go. There are still plenty of of 1.0 sites out there so hopefully this will help some:

o. Joomla upgrade from 1.0 to 1.5 is NOT straightforward and something that you can follow a script and complete. I would allocate anywhere from 5 to 40 hours  of effort to it depending on the size of your installation, the 

1. Read and follow this article to the last detail. It works.

http://www.siteground.com/tutorials/joomla15/joomla_upgrade.htm

2. The above article does not cover upgrading VirtueMart. There are complications when you are embarking on an upgrade that includes VirtueMart.

Read this article very closely and follow it. It works.

http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=60443.msg210375

This article can help too.

http://www.ebizzsol.com/weblog/2009/5-steps-to-upgrade-joomla-1-0-x-with-virtuemart-1-0-5-to-joomla-1-5-x-with-virtuemart-1-1-3/

Finally, this list of steps from Richard Bean at http://www.businesscontent.com.au helped me a lot during my recent upgrade. I folloed the Siteground tutorial more closely though. That's the one I'd recommend sticking to. What I like about this list is that it helps understand the high level tasks clearly so you know what you are doing and what point you are in the process:

1. Create a back up of your current site using Joomlapack
2. Install That back up (Still 1.0) in a subdomain
3. Run your updgrade patches there, make sure you check for component upgrade packages
4. Delete anything that's not compatible / Copy it to text somewhere
5. Do the upgrade
6. Install it on another subdomain
7. Make all of you template and component adjustments until you are happy with it
8. Back it up using joomlapack
9. Install it in your html folder.
10. Pray

 Now that you have the basic articles for the upgrade, here's a list of GOTCHAS. This is the part that nobody seems to have clearly spelled out yet.

Answer these questions to avoid a LOT of headache and pain during your upgrade:

 1. Does your server PHP, MySQL versions meed the requirements of the new version of Joomla 1.5.x  AND virtuemart AND sh404sef or other components that you have on the current site and will be looking to upgrade?

Make a list of all your components on the current site. Find out if they have a 1.5 version. Find out what the upgrade path is going from the current version of the component to the new one and what changes that brings to the site. Sometimes upgrades actually get rid of features that your site might be using. They often break. 

 For instance, sh404sef is a key SEO component for Joomla that thousands of sites use. The 1.5 version of this component is NOT free and costs $35/year. Also requires MySQL 5+ and PHP 5.2+. Also, you will need to ensure that the SEO URL's in the upgraded site are the exact same as the SEO URL's in the 1.0 site to avoid breaking any hard-earned inbound links.

 Think about this BEFORE embarking on the upgrade.

2. Are there components on the current site that do not have a 1.5 version? If so, how are you going to replicate the features in the new site?

Research new components, factor the time/work involved in that as well. Will the new component be a new URL? If so, make sure you note the old URL and set up a 301 redirect to preserve links. 

3. Does your theme on the 1.0 site come with a corresponding 1.5 version? Download the theme first and install it on another 1.5 site if possible to learn about it before you start the upgrade. Most themes have some idiosynchracies that may prevent them from working with 1.5. You will almost always have to do some twaeking of the theme CSS to get it to work in the new 1.5 site. You will need to analyze the theme to estimate how much effort this is going to be.

Here are the problems I faced and what I did to overcome them:

1. If you are upgrading Virtuemart along with Joomla, make sure you follow the virtue-mart specific upgrade instructions.

2.  sh404sef new version is PAID. That's $35/year more that you need to account for.

3. sh404sef version for 1.5.7.389 RC1 did not work for me. I went ahead and installed the old GNU/GPL FREE version and that ended up working just fine. Since then, Anything Digital has released a new version 1.5.7.407 so perhaps those issues have been resolved but at this point, the good ol' free version has everything that I needed. Plus the support on the forum was almost non-existent so I really don't see the need to buy the new version for $35 per year.

 4. com_content is now com_placehere. The new component works a bit differently but does the same job at the end of the day of showing content info in modules. All modules that use this content will have to be re-created.

5.  I am a big fan of Rocket Theme templates - use it on several sites (including this one). That was the highlight of the install. The new template (1.5 version) was easy to set up and configure to match the 1.0 version site.

6. 1.5 version of the DF Contact component had bugs and installed with some minor issues (English language files were not getting copied during install) so the contact form has some missing text. I recommend other contact form components such as breezingforms.

Hope these tips help you get a smoother Joomla upgrade done!

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