Support

Site Restoration

#12920 Invalid header in archive file, part 0, offset 1908978133

Posted in ‘Site restoration’
This is a public ticket

Everybody will be able to see its contents. Do not include usernames, passwords or any other sensitive information.

Environment Information

PHP version
n/a
CMS Type
Other
CMS Version
n/a
Backup Tool Version
n/a
Kickstart version
n/a

Latest post by on Friday, 10 August 2012 18:00 CDT

Tuesday, 10 July 2012 16:40 CDT

user7586
Mandatory information about my setup:

Have I read the related troubleshooter articles above before posting (which pages?)? No
Have I searched the tickets before posting? No
Have I read the documentation before posting (which pages?)? No
Joomla! version: (unknown)
PHP version: (unknown)
MySQL version: (unknown)
Host: (optional, but it helps us help you)
Akeeba Backup version which took the backup: (unknown)
Kickstart version used to extract the backup: (unknown)

Description of my issue:

I have tried using kickstart and I get an error, so I downloaded Akeeba extract wizard and it keeps coming up with the error

Invalid header in archive file, part 0, offset 1908978133

Any ideas please

Wednesday, 11 July 2012 01:24 CDT

nicholas
If you really have a 1.8Gb or bigger archive file, please check the following:
- Have you downloaded the archive by FTP in binary transfer mode? If not, you have to. You have to be especially aware that downloading very big backup archives through the component's back-end might, as the component warns you, corrupt or truncate the archive.
- Similarly, check that you have uploaded the archive by FTP in binary transfer mode for the same reasons.
- What is the exact size of your backup archive? If it's less than 1908978133
- Are there any more part files? When you have big archives it is possible that the archive is split in many parts, e.g. .jpa, .j01, .j02 and so on. You need all of the parts to restore the backup archive.

If this doesn't help I need all of the information you omitted:
- Joomla! version
- PHP version
- Kickstart version (it's written at the top of the page)
- Akeeba Backup version used to take the backup

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!

Wednesday, 11 July 2012 03:31 CDT

user7586
Hi
The problem is that the site went corrupt and I downloaded the .jpa file, subsequently the owner of the site believing the backup was downloaded has wiped his server.

So npw I am stuck with a corrupt .jpa file, is there any method of extracting the files, because Akeeba Extract will not do it.

Wednesday, 11 July 2012 03:34 CDT

nicholas
There is something you can try. It may not extract all of the files, but it will certainly get as much files we can extract as possible. Download the latest dev release of Kicsktart and enable the "Ignore most errors" option. Then try extracting your archive.

Even if the extraction fails, you can still make a partial site restoration. Just visit http://www.example.com/installation/index.php after you get the error message and proceed with the restoration. Depending on which files were not extracted you may have simply lost some media files or you may have to install again some extensions. Unfortunately this is as good as it gets when you have a corrupt backup archive.

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!

Wednesday, 11 July 2012 04:47 CDT

user7586
I have started the process but is it normal that when the restoration is being completed that the directory is not viewable in FTP?

Wednesday, 11 July 2012 05:20 CDT

nicholas
What do you mean not viewable? The directory where you are extracting the files is not being touched. Its permissions define if you can see its contents or not.

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!

Wednesday, 11 July 2012 05:44 CDT

user7586
I uploaded kickstart + ini file + .jpa to a directory called techworx, I started the kickstart program and it seemed to hang around components, I looked in my ftp program to see what was happening and it had gone.

Wednesday, 11 July 2012 06:00 CDT

nicholas
If you don't see the components directory, this could be normal depending on where the archive corruption begins. If you don't see the root directory, where kickstart.php and the backup archive, this could indicate a hosting problem.

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!

Wednesday, 11 July 2012 07:38 CDT

user7586
Thanks Nicholas, I have managed to extract something, can you advise me, I have restored the site and the front page comes up fine but when I click any menu it gives me a 404 eror, all the articles are in the backend and I have even re-associated the menus but still I get 404, any ideas please

Wednesday, 11 July 2012 10:52 CDT

nicholas
I think I know what's that :) When extracting the backup archive your .htaccess file was extracted as htaccess.bak. Find that file in your site's root and rename it back to .htaccess. That should solve the 404s.

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!

Wednesday, 11 July 2012 15:03 CDT

user7586
You are STAR, thank you so much

Wednesday, 11 July 2012 15:54 CDT

nicholas
Cheers! I'm always happy when I can help people :)

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!

Friday, 10 August 2012 18:00 CDT

System Task
system
This ticket has been automatically closed. All tickets which have been inactive for a long time are automatically closed. If you believe that this ticket was closed in error, please contact us.

Support Information

Working hours: We are open Monday to Friday, 9am to 7pm Cyprus timezone (EET / EEST). Support is provided by the same developers writing the software, all of which live in Europe. You can still file tickets outside of our working hours, but we cannot respond to them until we're back at the office.

Support policy: We would like to kindly inform you that when using our support you have already agreed to the Support Policy which is part of our Terms of Service. Thank you for your understanding and for helping us help you!