Support

Check the directory you set up in the Site Setup Wizard. I think you have accidentally added a /kickstart which would cause the subdirectory to be created.

Remember, the Site Transfer Wizard needs you to configure it in such a way that the FTP/SFTP connection information will allow it to upload files to the directory which corresponds to the site URL you entered in the first step of the wizard. If you are indeed trying to upload to a subdirectory of a domain, e.g. https://www.example.com/kickstart, then you need to enter the URL with the subdirectory in the first step.

It is normal to have a kicktemp folder (note that it's not kickstart). It is a temporary directory created by the Site Transfer Wizard and given 0777 permissions. This is a precaution, in case we have to use the Hybrid or FTP file write mode (as opposed to Direct File Writes).

The existence of this folder and the message you get tells me that kickstart.php was also uploaded in that folder, but accessing it over the web failed. Accessing over the web means accessing the URL https://neu.EXAMPLE.COM/kickstart.php, where example.com is your site's domain which I am redacting because this is a public ticket. Upload kickstart.php yourself and try accessing that URL on your subdomain. If you get an error you can figure out what the problem is (e.g. wrong PHP version).

If, however, it works, I have to ask you where this subdomain's web root is. If it's under the web root of a site which is already using a .htaccess file created by Admin Tools' .htaccess Maker it won't work because the main site's .htaccess gets in the way. The correct approach is to move the subdomain's site root one level above (i.e. next to) the main site's web root folder. If that's not the case, ask your host whether this particular server and site may be blocking access based on IP address or the HTTP User-Agent header.

Just because kickstart.php is no longer there does not mean it has not been uploaded at all. In fact, you cannot possibly receive the error message you mentioned in your first message unless the upload has completed successfully. It just so happens that if the next step after that, trying to access the file over the web, does not work the Site Transfer Wizard removes the uploaded kickstart.php for security reasons.

I am of course fully aware of this. I wrote this code myself. This is why the last period of my previous reply states "Upload kickstart.php yourself and try accessing that URL on your subdomain. If you get an error you can figure out what the problem is (e.g. wrong PHP version)".

Can you please do that and tell me what results you get?

Maybe it's a problem with the Akeeba Backup Version, since I installed 8.3.3. pro before transferring?

No, it is not. The Site Transfer Wizard code has not been touched in over two years, as you can easily see in the changelog in the backend.

Contact the host of the original site and ask them if they are using a transparent proxy for outgoing HTTP / HTTPS requests, and whether the requests to the new site are cached or blocked. This is the most common problem.

The second most common problem is that the request was blocked at the target site's server (where you are transferring the site to). Ask that host if they are blocking the requests from your original host in any way. Hosts tend to have automations which may not like repetitive, similar requests from the same IP address; they look like a hacker trying to attack sites, therefore they drop the ban-hammer (they block the entire IP of the source server).

The PHP version should not be a problem. Akeeba Backup and Kickstart are developed on PHP 8.2 and tested with PHP 7.4, 8.0, 8.1, and 8.3 (development snapshots, it's not officially released yet).

I am currently on vacation and my connection sucks. When I'm back at the office I will test again, but I don't see how anything would've changed as no changes to this feature or Kickstart have been done for a very long while. Strange.

Open the file administrator/components/com_akeeba/Master/Installers/kickstart.transfer.php line 255 and change it to 

$last = strtolower(substr($val, -1));

Please keep in mind that Akeeba Backup 8 for Joomla! 3 is End of Life and only receives security updates. This is not a security update. We do not plan on releasing any new version to address it. This issue has already been addressed since October 2022 in Akeeba Backup 9 for Joomla 4.

Best use the old-fashioned site transfer method. Take a backup. Upload the backup archive file(s) and kickstart.php (Kickstart Core). Access the /kicsktart.php URL on the new server and proceed with the restoration.

The only thing the Site Transfer Wizard does is upload the backup archive and Kickstart. Nothing less and nothing more. There's no "special magic" in what it does. Transferring sites with Akeeba Backup and its predecessor, JoomlaPack, has always been possible from the very first version. That was actually what I wrote this software for; taking backups as a side-effect of the transfer process was merely a happy accident.