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Akeeba Backup for Joomla!

#8792 Error * Error building Admin Menus

Posted in ‘Akeeba Backup for Joomla! 4 & 5’
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Environment Information

Joomla! version
n/a
PHP version
n/a
Akeeba Backup version
n/a

Latest post by nicholas on Friday, 28 January 2011 07:17 CST

pannerrammer
I've just created a new site using Joomla 1.6.0 and then installed Akeeba backup pro 3.2 beta4

It displays the error
Error

* Error building Admin Menus

What have I done wrong?

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager
That's a bug in Joomla! 1.6. Occasionally, it fails building the menu items. I don't know of any workarounds except rebuilding the site (yes, that's right, Joomla! 1.6 randomly corrupts one of its core tables).

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡·Greek: native πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§English: excellent πŸ‡«πŸ‡·French: basic β€’ πŸ• My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

pannerrammer
That's sort of the reason I use Akeeba backup!

Typically I install joomla on a 'live' (hosted) website, then immediately akeeba. I then backup the virgin site and reinstate the 'live' site on my personal/local webserver. Then develop the site locally. When complete, backup and restore to the live hosted site. Job done, invoice in the post!

Will install joomla 1.6 directly onto my personal/local webserver then akeeba and see what happens.

Cheers.

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager
Please let me know if the local installation works. I have a strong suspicion that there's something odd going on with Joomla!'s extension installer and some versions of PHP, but I still haven't spotted the exact pattern.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡·Greek: native πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§English: excellent πŸ‡«πŸ‡·French: basic β€’ πŸ• My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

pannerrammer
I forgot to say in previous posts that Akeeba backup is damn good. Thanks.

I've repeated my steps on another blank live site (which I use for development, etc) and can replicate the issue at will (and clear it).

Joomla 1.6 installs ok. php is 5.2.17

Next I installed the Akeeba component 3.1.2-pro (because that's what I'd previously downloaded). After a minute or whatever, it failed and I got a blank screen with 'Done' down the bottom.

So, then I downloaded 3.2.b4-pro and installed that instead. It reported success but also gave 2 xml error messages
JInstaller: :Install: Cannot find Joomla XML setup file
JInstaller: :Install: Cannot find XML setup file
Installing component was successful.


And the component didn't appear in Joomla's menus.

The Akeeba component can be used to overwrite an earlier installation, so I tried to install it again. This time I got the menu error message
Error building Admin Menus
Installing component was successful.


So, the issue seems to be caused by a prior failed component install, not 3.2.b4-pro.

To clear the problem I tried the following:
  • I deleted the failed 3.1.2-pro.zip file from the /tmp directory. The component still failed to install (but I suspect this step is necessary).
  • Using myphpAdmin I deleted the 3 akeeba entries from the jos_extensions table (screenshot-1)
  • Using myphpAdmin I deleted the akeeba entry from the jos_menu table (screenshot-2)

Installed 3.2.b4-pro again and it installed without error.

However!
The akeeba menu item is still missing. I went to the Extension manager -> Manage option and clicked Refresh cache and got a whole list of missing xml errors (screenshot-3).

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager
It's simple. Joomla! 1.6.b13 introduced a lot of changes and versions before Akeeba Backup 3.1.4 wouldn't install properly. Joomla! 1.6.RC1 introduced even more changes, so Akeeba Backup 3.1.x wouldn't install; only 3.2.b2 or later would. Trying to install an older Akeeba Backup release on Joomla! 1.6.RC1 or later will screw up the component menu table (thank you Joomla! for not cleaning up properly after yourself) ensuring that you can't install a newer version. The solution is exactly what you described.

That's why on our extensions.joomla.org page we point out that you need the latest version for Joomla! 1.6, noting that older versions are not compatible.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡·Greek: native πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§English: excellent πŸ‡«πŸ‡·French: basic β€’ πŸ• My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

pannerrammer
Yes, I should have checked that I'd got the latest akeeba before I started!

The akeeba menu item was still missing (on site-A), so I installed another joomla (on yet another site) before installing just akeeba 3.2.b4 and this time everything worked as expected.

Comparing the 2 databases, the akeeba entry in jos_menu table on site-A had a component_id of 0 (rather than 10005 or whatever it happens to be in the jos_extensions table).

Editing this value got the akeeba menu and everything seems to be working.

Thanks.

nicholas
Akeeba Staff
Manager
I'm glad you got that fixed and thank you for providing the detailed information for fixing this! There seem to be quite a few people affected by this already.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

πŸ‡¬πŸ‡·Greek: native πŸ‡¬πŸ‡§English: excellent πŸ‡«πŸ‡·French: basic β€’ πŸ• 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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