Support

First please let me point out that when Kickstart fails it gives you a link to the relevant troubleshooter page. Therefore you neither have to be a technical person nor spend countless hours reading the VERY detailed documentation that covers just about every possible, improbable and almost impossible case that our experience of 23,000+ tickets and 9 years has brought into our attention (and these are just the ones that are impossible to deal automatically / programmatically).

As you can read on that page the solution is rather simple.

Before starting Kickstart, you will have to do some preparatory work. Using your FTP client application, create a directory named kicktemp inside the same directory kickstart.php is in. For example, if kickstart.php is in public_html directory you have to create the kicktemp directory inside the public_html directory. Using your FTP client application give that directory (that is: the kicktemp directory) 0777 permissions (read, write and browse/execute to owner, group and others). Don't worry, we will get rid of that directory later.

When Kickstart starts, set the Write to files option to Use FTP. In the fields which appear below you have to supply your FTP host name (usually it's localhost, 127.0.0.1 or the FTP hostname provided to you by your host), the FTP username and password provided by your host and the FTP directory.

In order to determine the proper FTP directory, do this. Connect to your site using FileZilla. Navigate inside the folder Joomla! is installed in. Usually it's a directory named public_html, htdocs, www or something similar. If unsure don't ask us, ask your host. Now, on the right-hand pane you will find the FTP path. Most likely it will look something like /public_html. Copy this and paste it into the FTP Directory text box in Kickstart.

In the Temporary Directory box you see that there is already something written in it. Append (do not replace!) /kicktemp to it. For example, if it was reading /home/users/myuser/public_html it should now read /home/users/myuser/public_html/kicktemp. Click on the Check button next to it. It should tell you that the directory is readable. If not, retry the above procedure and don't skip any steps. Then click on the Test FTP Connection button. It should tell you that the FTP connection was established. If not, ask your host if they do support sites writing to themselves using FTP. If they don't you'll have to manually extract the archive locally (e.g. using Akeeba eXtract Wizard) and upload the files manually. In this case, please consult the Quick Start Guide for further instructions.

Alternatively, you can use the Hybrid write mode, as documented in Kickstart's documentation, which does most of the above for you as long as you provide the correct FTP connection information.

Now, as to why this happens.

This issue has to do with how your host has set up their server. Kickstart or any PHP script, including Joomla! itself, that requires to write files to the server needs adequate permissions for PHP itself to be able to write to files on your server. On most hosts this is not a problem since PHP runs under the same user as your user account, either through FastCGI or (if you have a really old server) through suPHP.

On an unfortunately configured host, like the one you are restoring to, PHP runs as an Apache module, therefore under the same user as your server making files unwriteable to PHP. This is why you need to use the FTP layer in Kicsktart AND you will need to do the same after restoration with Joomla! itself. That's how web server works.

For very detailed information on how users, groups, permissions and FTP works on your server please consult the very detailed Security Information chapter of our documentation. It is a long read but it will help you understand the technical aspects which make objectively impossible for software to deal with these issues without your providing of additional information.

Regarding your comment about your purchase please do let me remind you that you are paying us for our software and support. We did provide our support promptly. However you need to keep in mind that we are NOT your host and we cannot be held responsible for your server's misconfiguration. It is objectively impossible for unprivileged user space software –like the one running on a shared server– to modify privileged server configuration. This is essentially what you ask of us. Objectively, this is impossible. The only thing you can do is explore better hosting opportunities for your sites. For this, we strongly recommend the hosting companies SiteGround and Rochen.

Then it removes "run installer" and shows me "clean up"

Yes, that's what it's supposed to do. But also, it opens a new tab or window with the installer. If you do not see that other window then you have a popup blocker. In this case just open a new window and visit installation/index.php on it. Please do keep in mind that at this point Professional or Core has no relevance because the code you've run so far (Kickstart) is common. Also note that this comes AFTER the step where you told me you have a problem.

as i look into the installation folder it is incomplete.

Yes, it is. I think the problem comes from much earlier, in the backup process. Let's rule that out. Create a new backup profile and run the Configuration Wizard. Take a backup with this profile and try to restore it.

all i get is this screen when i use hybrid mode

*sigh* Your server has some restrictions we can't work around with the Hybrid mode. If the above doesn't work we'll have to extract the archive manually. In this case I will probably have to take a look directly on your server to understand exactly what restrictions you have there.

when i finally get to install, i get a database error i can't get pass. i tried local and remote database with no progress

That tells me that you do have a problem during backup. Please do follow the instructions to create a new backup profile and use it for a new backup.