Which Joomla version is best to install Civi 3.1.5

[DravenJohn]

Hey guys.

I've been asked to retreive an old joomla civicrm install from a site that no longer exists.

The domain table indicates that it's from a 3.1.5 civicrm install.

I decided to set up a dummy domain in order to access it should they wish to go through with the update process.

Problem is it doesn't seem to detect in the joomla auto-installer in the latest version.

Which Joomla version should I use in order to install Civicrm 3.1.5?

Or am I doing this all completely wrong, and I should be able to install 3.1.5 on the latest version of Joomla anyway?

Thanks!

[Coleman Watts]

What version of J are they using currentlly?
IIRC it should work with J 2.5.x but not 3.x

[DravenJohn]

Thanks Coleman.

I will try it out tomorrow with 2.5 and give you feedback for future users to confirm.

The site is gone, all I was provided with was an old .sql dump.

[Coleman Watts]

I would recommend the following steps:

• Do a stock Joomla 2.5.x install
• Download and install CiviCRM 4.2.19. Ensure it's working.
• Drop all civicrm_* fields from the database, and then dump in your old Civi dump. Careful not to mess with the Joomla db.
• Run the upgrader to upgrade the old db to 4.2.19
• If that worked, consider then upgrading to an even newer version of Civi. 4.5 is the lowest version that supports Joomla 3.

[DravenJohn]

Hey again Coleman just an update.

I managed to install both successfully but upon doing an import I started getting "you do not have permission to access this page" clicking on certain items within civi, such as designating the external database so I could easily repeat the process until something worked.

I was getting the message on the frontend of the site for some reason, a lot of other options in civi also pointed me towards the frontend with various messages.

I'm having trouble working out how to fix this one, as both versions are outdated and there doesn't seem to be many articles availible.

Any ideas?

[Coleman Watts]

Could you describe that in a bit more detail? Of the steps I outlined above, did you follow them and which step did you get stuck on?
Did you try clearing all caches within CiviCRM?

[DravenJohn]

Sure dude.

Sorry for the delay.

I followed your advice on installed joomla 2.5.27 on a subdomain of the site i'm trying to get the civi functional on.

Everything seems to be working ok as far as Joomla is concerned.

I installed civi 3.5.1 to prepare for the DB transfer, but pretty much all internal functionality is restricted by ending up on this page as illustrated here : http://imgur.com/LhbUrui

I can't get to any civi config pages or options.

I tried googling it, but it seems like such an outdated problem that there isn't any visible solutions. I can't even get the checklist up!!

Any help would be awesome, thanks.

[Coleman Watts]

Ok so to clarify - at step 2 instead of installing Civi 4.2.19 you installed Civi 3.5.1?

[DravenJohn]

Thanks for helping me out here.

I tried 4.2.19 but it resulted in this error showing up whenever I tried to get into it via joomla

I figured at least 3.5.1 actually got me into some form of menu. I'll post what happens when I try 4.2.19 on joomla 2.5.27

Initialization Error

Array
(
    [callback] => Array
        (
           

• => CRM_Core_Error
[1] => simpleHandler
        )

   

Code: [Select]

=> -19
    [message] => DB Error: no such field
    [mode] => 16
    [debug_info] => SELECT *,  config_backend, locales, locale_custom_strings 
 FROM civicrm_domain
 
 WHERE (  civicrm_domain.id = 1 ) 
 
 
 
 [nativecode=1054 ** Unknown column 'locale_custom_strings' in 'field list']
    [type] => DB_Error
    [user_info] => SELECT *,  config_backend, locales, locale_custom_strings 
 FROM civicrm_domain
 
 WHERE (  civicrm_domain.id = 1 ) 
 
 
 
 [nativecode=1054 ** Unknown column 'locale_custom_strings' in 'field list']
    [to_string] => [db_error: message="DB Error: no such field" code=-19 mode=callback callback=CRM_Core_Error::simpleHandler prefix="" info="SELECT *,  config_backend, locales, locale_custom_strings 
 FROM civicrm_domain
 
 WHERE (  civicrm_domain.id = 1 ) 
 
 
 
 [nativecode=1054 ** Unknown column 'locale_custom_strings' in 'field list']"]
)


[DravenJohn]

This is before putting any external database in.

I tried doing this with a fresh install too and it yielded the same results.

[Coleman Watts]

Hmm, I don't know exactly what's going on but if you can't get a fresh, clean copy of Joomla + Civi to run on your hosting environment I don't think you have much chance of getting your old site working either.
If I were you I'd forget about the import for the moment and focus on just trying to get a clean copy of CIvi 4.2 up and running. Have you gone through all the steps in the installation guide?