CiviCRM Community Forums (archive)

The following is how I got civCRM installed successfully on a Joomla site on Thinkhost.  I don't need a response, but I am leaving this record of my steps so it can be found by someone else searching for the same errors I encountered in the process.

I began by following the documentation <http://wiki.civicrm.org/confluence/display/CRMUPCOMING/Upgrade+Joomla+Sites+to+3.0>  and uploading the downloaded zip file into the tmp directory for Joomla to install, but immediately ran into a problems. 

First of all it said it could not successfully uninstall.  After that message I looked at where I would expect to see civiCRM files (the component directory and the component sub directory of the administrator director) and saw none, so I assumed I was fine to proceed.
On attempting the install I got a white screen of death.  Based on past experience, I presumed this was a timeout the file (at 9MB) was too big to unzip (because of my hosts limits, I assume).  I do not have access to error files, but my FTP program said it had been disconnected from the server.  So I began again and unzipped the package file on my own local machine and FTP’ed it into the tmp directory and tried again.

This time I got the following errors:
•   JFile::read: Unable to open file: '/data/home/vran/websites/railvermont.org/docs/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/templates/CRM/common/civicrm.settings.php.tpl'
•   JFile::read: Unable to open file: '/data/home/vran/websites/railvermont.org/docs/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/templates/CRM/common/civicrm.settings.php.tpl'
Warning: zip_read() expects parameter 1 to be resource, integer given in /data/home/vran/websites/railvermont.org/docs/libraries/joomla/filesystem/archive/zip.php on line 234

Warning: zip_close() expects parameter 1 to be resource, integer given in /data/home/vran/websites/railvermont.org/docs/libraries/joomla/filesystem/archive/zip.php on line 250

Warning: fopen(/data/home/vran/websites/railvermont.org/docs/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/templates/CRM/common/civicrm.settings.php.tpl) [function.fopen]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /data/home/vran/websites/railvermont.org/docs/libraries/joomla/filesystem/file.php on line 239

Warning: fopen(/data/home/vran/websites/railvermont.org/docs/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/templates/CRM/common/civicrm.settings.php.tpl) [function.fopen]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /data/home/vran/websites/railvermont.org/docs/libraries/joomla/filesystem/file.php on line 239
CiviCRM component files have been UPGRADED succesfully.

I uninstalled and tried again for good measure, but got the same error.  I went off searching the forums and found suggestions that this could be a permissions error, so I looked at the directories which were all owned by the right user and set to 755, so that didn’t seem to be an issue.

One of the threads suggested that using the alt zip file might work better, so I tried that, unzipping on my local machine and ftping into place on the server.

In the course of this I realized what could have caused the earlier problems: I hadn’t paid attention to failed transfers, and probably some files didn’t make it over.

After all 8,000 or so files were ftped up, I went to the installations screen and installed from directory.  And got.  A white screen of death.  Oh.
Clicked refresh.  And got.  “installed successfully!”

Ran the database upgrade script.  Another white screen.  Click refresh and it says “your database has already been upgraded to civiCRM 3.0

Went to enable civiGrants, but got a could not find key error.

After ftping the two settings files back into place it seems to be good.  Now to test it!