Hi herszbaum

I strongly recommend NOT upgrading your LIVE Joomla 3 website to Joomla 4. Regardless of the template you are using. I updated nearly 80 websites following these steps:

- create a subdomain (e.g.) j4.yourwebsite.com
- create a new database
- export the existing database and import it into the new database
- copy the Joomla 3 website files to the subdomain j4.yourwebsite.com

Note: thus the live Joomla 3 website will be accessible to visitors any time during the upgrade.

- open the file http://j4.yourwebsite.com/configuration.php and change the database credentials in order to point to the new database. These are:
public $host = 'xyz'; (often «localhost»)
public $db = 'xyz'; (your database name)
public $user = 'xyz'; (your database username)
public $password = 'xyz'; (your database password)
- also change the following variables
public $log_path = 'xyz'; (the new location)
public $tmp_path = 'xyz'; (the new location)
- login to the back-end of j4.yourwebsite.com and upgrade to Joomla 4

Note: you may find some outdated extensions you need to do away with, some extensions that need to be updated to a Joomla 4 compatible version, etc.
This is the right moment to install the Joomla-4-version of your J51 template.

- test and find out if any single page of j4.yourwebsite.com is working correctly after the upgrade
- create a subdomain (e.g.) j3.yourwebsite.com
- move the Joomla 3 website files to the subdomain j3.yourwebsite.com
- open the file http://j3.yourwebsite.com/configuration.php and change the variables
public $log_path = 'xyz'; (the new location)
public $tmp_path = 'xyz'; (the new location)
If you forget this step, your J3 website is very likely to be working all the same. It is not recommended to forget, though.

- move the Joomla 4 website files from the subdomain j4.yourwebsite.com to the root directory yourwebsite.com
- open the file http://yourwebsite.com/configuration.php and change the variables
public $log_path = 'xyz'; (the new location)
public $tmp_path = 'xyz'; (the new location)
- update PHP to 8.x

Your live website is now on Joomla 4.
You will find your old website in the subdomain j3.yourwebsite.com as long as you want to keep it.
Feel free to delete the empty temporary subdomain j4.yourwebsite.com now.

You need to buy the Joomla 4 version of your Template J51 - Enterprise. Use the coupon code J4ENTERPRISE3091 and you will get a 50% discount.

Kind regards
Chris

Chris,

Thank you so much for your detailed response!!
I'm glad that I asked since I would've tried to do the upgrade on the live website, which would've been disastrous for the users and quite frustrating for me!

thank you again!

Nestor

Hi Nestor

you're welcome :-)

Kind regards
Chris

Hi Chris,

I followed your advise and updated all files on a subdomain. After updating all j51 extensions and the template on the frontend rather than the homepage I get this message:
0 - Call to a member function get() on null

The backend is working well and all plugins seem to be up to date.

Yes, I have seen this error message before. Apparently this happens after an upgrade from J3 to J4. With Joomla 4 a new policy for the template's directory structure was introduced. The template's main files still are in the folder /templates/j51_xyz but some of them are here: media/templates/site/j51_xyz. I do not know the reason for this change of policy, but it is obvious that this is causing issues in some cases. I guess that if we update from J3 to J4, some old files remain in the folder /templates/j51_xyz whereas the same files exist in the new folder media/templates/site/j51_xyz as well. Getting rid of them might resolve the issue:

- Delete (or better rename) the template folder /templates/j51_xyz
- Reinstall the template

You will lose any existing custom CSS settings. Make sure you have a copy of your custom.css file, if one exists at all.

Kind regards
Chris

Thank you so much! I'll try that today. Do I uninstall the j4 template before installing it again after renaming the /templates/j51_enterprise folder?

Another weird thing that happened is that since I had to uninstall all the j51 mods and then reinstall the j4 mods, all my modules that I had created for the Slideshow, Carousel, etc. disappeared and I had to recreate them. I'm so glad that you advised to leave the j3 standing while creating the j4 site. I can't thank you enough!

Best regards,
Nestor

No you do not need to uninstall. Just delete (or better rename) the folder, then install the template again.

I just renamed /templates/j51_enterprise and then reinstalled the j4 template.
A new folder was created after installing it (/templates/j51_enterprise), but I still get the same error message in the frontend.

Thank you!
Nestor

In this case, there might be an old extension that is causing this issue.

Goto System > Global Configuration
Open the «Server» tab
Set «Error Reporting» to «Maximum»
Reload the Front-End
You might find an error message that gives you a hint, which extension (maybe a plugin) is causing this error. In this case, you certainly need to either uninstall this or update extension to a Joomla-4-compatible version.

Kind regards
Chris

I did it and I got the same error message.

At this point I'm thinking about starting over. I think one of the issues that I might have had is that when I tried to update the J51 plugins before upgrading to Joomla 4 it didn't work, then I uninstalled them and reinstalled them in Joomla 4. Do you think that might be the cause, and that starting over is a good idea?

thank you!

No further information is being displayed? Weird!

Starting over is a very good plan, if you do not lose to much content. This way, you will have a brand new website, without contamination. Good luck!

Just to clarify, I can't start over since I have too many pages and images.
But I'll start over with your process by replicating the website and upgrading to Joomla 4 on a different folder with a different subdomain, and database.

Thank you again for all your help!

I'm back to square one. I followed your instructions, upgraded to J4, updated all the plugins, renamed the /templates/j51_enterprise, reinstalled the j51_enterprise template, and set error reporting to maximum and got the same error message. This time around the modules that had dissappeared the first time are still there, which is reassuring, but I don't know what else to try. Any other ideas?

Here is the front end of my website: https://new.herszbaum.com/index.php

thank you!

Setting «error reporting» to «maximum» should display more information than there is now visible on https://new.herszbaum.com/index.php. This is weird. Did you turn off «error reporting» in the meantime?

I am pretty convinced that you have an old incompatible plugin that still is enabled. This prevents the front-end from being displayed properly. Finding this plugin and disabling it would probably resolve the issue.

The error reporting is still on Maximum, but I don't get any further info...
I found AkeebaStrapper and unistalled it, and also uninstalled PLG_CONSOLE_AKEEBABACKUP.

Before this installation I uninstalled Akeeba Backup and Akeeba Admin Tools, and updated DirectPHP to avoid any conflicts when upgrading from Joomla 3 to Joomla 4.

Here are some captures from my initial installation.
Since I'm not familiar with Joomla 4 I looked on different menu items and found an error message in com_weblinks_links
An error has occurred.
500 behavior::tabstate not found.

Thank you!

You certainly need to uninstall pgl_content_geshi.

The two fof30 extensions can be done away with, too.

Weblinks: I can not imagine that you need this, so at least disable anything that contains «weblinks».

As far as SimplePie is concerned, I am not sure. May I suggest disabling SimplePie temporarily just in order to find out more facts about the error message on your Front-End.

The two RegularLabs extensions may need to be updated. Disabling them temporarily just for a try migh be a good idea.

If you want to find out which of these extensions was preventing your website form working, you should not disable resp. not uninstall all together but one after the other and test the Front-End after each extension.

I can see the frontend!
I had to disable DirectPHP even though it was a Joomla 4 version. Now the problem is that I get several error messages on the homepage:


Warning: Trying to access array offset on value of type null in /...../templates/j51_enterprise/php/layouts/social_icons.php on line 54

Deprecated: json_decode(): Passing null to parameter #1 ($json) of type string is deprecated in /..../templates/j51_enterprise/php/variables.php on line 281
-After I tried to make some changes in the template styles, such as changing the copyright.

I also get some error messages in Template - Styling (5 times) and once in Logo :

Deprecated
: reset(): Calling reset() on an object is deprecated in
/..../templates/j51_enterprise/elements/googlefonts.php
on line
256

Google fonts is not loading the original font that I had in Joomla 3,
FontAwesome is not working, even after I turned autoload on and off a few times.
the social media icons don't appear after trying to edit the template styling.


thank you so much!!
Nestor

In the «Global Configuration» you may set «Error Reporting» to «Normal» or to «Off»
The «Deprecated» error message is not severe anyway.
One of the error messages concerns the template's social icons. This probably explains why thy are not visible. Without being able to have a closer look to the website, it is not possible for me to find out the reason for this. I think it is a good idea to involve Ciaran at this point.
FontAwesome: I have in mind that we should use Fontawesome V5 syntax.

Kind regards
Chris

Chris,
Thank you again for all your help!!

I turned Error reporting off, and changed the Fontawesome V5 syntax, which fixed some of the issues that I had before.

How do I get Ciaran involved to fix the problem with the social media icons and with the google fonts not loading?

Best regards,
Nestor

The current thread has become very long. So I don't think Ciaran keeps reading our conversation. You'd better open a new thread describing the remaining issues.