Akeeba Backup for Joomla!

Monday, 30 March 2015 06:15 CDT

10frank10

EXTREMELY IMPORTANT: Please attach a ZIP file containing your Akeeba Backup log file in order for us to help you with any backup or restoration issue. If the file is over 2Mb, please upload it on your server and post a link to it.

Description of my issue:

Hi!

I have that logs-folder-problem because of a Plesk/apache-site. Now I know that this causes "unwritable" and it is NOT a bug, I know also.

My question: Is it important to have that logs-file writable and if so, is there any way to get it writable? Or is it just plain unimportant, because so far I use akeeba for quite a while and I have never noticed this problem... (/logs = unwritable) and never have experienced any restoring and backup-problem.

Thanks for any information if I have to do something (maybe change my provider)...
Frank

Monday, 30 March 2015 07:20 CDT

nicholas

Joomla! requires a writable folder where it can write its logs. If it can't write its logs the result can vary from nothing happening to receiving an error message and Joomla! not working. It depends on many things, including whether you have enabled Debug Site in Global Configuration.

The best solution is to create a folder named "log" in your site's root that's writeable to Joomla!. Then go to Global Configuration, find the "Log directory" setting and set it to the absolute path of the "log" directory you've created. Alternatively, simply back up and restore your site. At the Site Setup step of ANGIE you can choose your temp and log directories' locations. Most likely this is also the reason you never saw any problem: ANGIE tries to use the "log" directory (without the trailing "s") by default when restoring your site.

In my opinion the fact that Joomla! uses the "logs" folder name by default is an issue. Plesk and many other server environments have a system-owned, unwriteable logs directory. Joomla! should cater for that as it's a common occurrence.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Monday, 30 March 2015 14:48 CDT

10frank10

Thanks very much.
I've created the log-folder on the root level (without 's') and from now on, every backup and restoration recreate the folder "log". Probably, but really I don't remember it, I must have done this before on the older other joomla-sites I have... because the problem has arisen since I have upgraded to Joomla 3.x recently... since I have reinstalled joomla from an in-built-application that my provider (apache/plesk based) offers by default...

Now there is a log-folder to write into again. Happy End...
Best regards
Frank

Tuesday, 31 March 2015 01:12 CDT

nicholas

We first noticed the "logs" folder issue many years ago, when I tried to restore a site on a Plesk server. Guess what happened. Ever since the log directory we proposed to the users when restoring sites was called "log" instead of "logs". Therefore using Akeeba Backup was efficiently working around a shortcoming of Joomla!. Good to know!

I just have one question for you, since I'm really curious about this. When you perform Joomla! updates, doesn't Joomla! Update warn you about not being able to write to the logs folder? As far as I remember there's an index.html file in the logs folder of update packages which would trigger the file write error.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Tuesday, 31 March 2015 01:35 CDT

10frank10

Hi again

I actually didn't get any error... But I remember receiving the error in the past once or twice. But not in the actual case... Maybe it is because I was always importing archive file (all on the same root), restauring the backup on a subdomain...?? I don't know. Right now I made the same procedure, with the new log-folder already installed and backuped. Restoration now on the subdomain is ok, having caught the new log-folder, no problem.

Have a nice day!
Frank

Tuesday, 31 March 2015 02:01 CDT

nicholas

OK, makes sense, but I was talking about Joomla!'s own "Joomla! Update" (com_joomlaupdate) component :) Under the hood it uses Akeeba Restore, the brains of Kickstart itself, to extract the update archive. I wanted to know if Joomla! Update behaves nicely on your server or whether I should provide a fix to the Joomla! project. Since I no longer have access to a Plesk server I had to rely on second hand experience :)

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Tuesday, 31 March 2015 08:16 CDT

10frank10

OK, sorry for not having answered correctly to your question. No, so far I hadn't any problems. The last update from Joomla has been to 3.4.1 and I do not remember any issue... But maybe, at that very moment, I had a logs and a log-Folder, both of them. I don't know how and when the log-folder disappeared. Really, I am "floating around" on behalf of how and when the issue log/logs came up... I am sorry not to answer more precisely the question.

Cheers, Frank

Tuesday, 31 March 2015 09:47 CDT

nicholas

OK, if you've not ran into trouble it means that my blind workaround for being unable to create the logs folder worked. That's all I wanted to know :) Thank you for your feedback!

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

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