Issues updating from Joomla 3.4.8 to 3.6.5

Question

I seem to have a major problem in the back-end of my site, but I am stumped as to where to fix it. When I try to update my site from J3.4.8 to 3.6.5 with the Joomla!Update component, the screen freezes at the "Updating your Joomla files."

I have tried to update the site directly by uploading the Joomla 3.6.5 package file from Extension Manager, but I get error "JInstaller: :Install: Can't find XML setup file." I have tried to install the update from the tmp directory, but I get the same error.

At this point, I can make no updates to my site. When I try to open an article, I get this error: "Fatal error: Call to a member function getTable() on boolean in E:\xampp\htdocs\ddauto\libraries\legacy\controller\form.php on line 366"

If I try to change a setting in Global Configuration, I get this error: "JForm::validateField() rule number missing."

Any help or insight would be greatly appreciated! I downloaded a backup of this site to my local xampp file to work on, but these are the same errors I was getting on my live site.

Answer 1

We don't have the full information and historical of your site and it's not clear if the update you have is prior to any update attempts. Also, it's not clear if any of your issues existed before your last attempts to update or if there were issues - maybe hidden ones- before than. What it looks like is that you have ended up with a broken/corrupted/semi-updated website.

At the moment what I would suggest is to replace all Joomla core files with a confirmed non-corrupted version of them.

• Download a copy of your site to your computer.
• Download a fresh Joomla archive and unzip it.
• Replace one by one all the Joomla core files/folders - but make sure you won't replace any 3rd party extensions/files/patches/custom files etc.

• Pay special attention to the components/modules both in admin site and the front-end site, the plugins, templates, media and also the libraries folder, as these are locations where 3rd party files exist. This is what I usually do in such case:

  1. Example #1:
     From the Fresh Joomla files, in administrator/components I grab all the contents of the components folder (the individual components folder) and I drop them in my site's administrator/components/ folder to replace all the core components in there - leaving intact the 3rd party ones.
  2. Example #2 From the fresh Joomla files plugins folder, I browse each plugins subfolder (content, system, search etc) and grab the plugins folders that exist in there and drop them on my site's corresponding plugin's folder to replace the core plugins - leaving intact any 3rd party ones.

• It's also possible of course if you have all the 3rd party extensions that you are using at the same version of your sites available to simply replace everything (your site's files/folders) with the fresh Joomla files/folders and then install the extensions, add your other custom files etc.

• Whatever the method of replacement, you aim to end up with a confirmed non-corrupted version of Joomla, and all of your other extensions/custom files in place.

• When this is done, you connect with your database, go to the extensions->manage -> check database utility, to confirm all Joomla core db schemas are up to date with the installed version of your files.