Migrating to Joomla 2.5 Step by Step Tutorial

An article by CMS Bloke    5 Comments

Upgrading / Migrating from Joomla 1.5 to Joomla 2.5

This post presents a step by step tutorial showing how to migrate your Joomla 1.5 website to Joomla 2.5 using two methods, i.e. using SP Upgrade or JUpgrade. Instructions for JUpgrade follow afterwards. SP Upgrade is simpler as it ignores 3^rd party extensions. JUpgrade tends to fail more and has limited error reporting, however if you do need to port items like Kunena or Community Builder do use JUpgrade as the manual migration of these is non-trivial.

Using SPUpgrade to Migrate to Joomla 2.5

Process Summary — A new installation of Joomla 2.5 is installed. The SP Upgrade component is installed on this system and configured to connect to the Joomla 1.5 database. SP Upgrade will copy and translate the data from j1.5 to the new installation.

Note1: If you want to port K2 featured websites use JUpgrade instead – it’s free. Download from here:

Note2: Both JUpgrade and SP Upgrade copy data only, you will need to copy your content/media files over to an appropriate location separately. The same applies for your template.

Note3: Ensure that your new installation does not have ANY articles in it.

1. Download and install the latest 2.5x on your host. Do NOT install the sample data.
2. Download and install SP Upgrade to this new Joomla installation  http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/migration-a-conversion/joomla-migration/15609
3. 
4. Go to Components | SP Upgrade
5. Fill in the database details of the Joomla 1.5 database (you need to be able to access the db from the 2.5 host)
6. 
7. Choose the options you want ported — typically I would select all options except template
8. Click the Migrate button
9. A new window will open and show progress of each step of the conversion, including user migration, categories, sections, content, etc. Make note of any errors that appear. Don’t worry if the dialog stays blank for 30 seconds or so – this is normal. This will take some time, even on small websites.
10. 
11. Copy over your image files, e.g. you may copy the images/stories folder into the J2.5 images folder so that you do not need to realign links in your content
12. Choose and install a template (or port your existing template to J2.5)
13. Go into the module manager and change positions to match those of the new template
14. Make note of all extensions that need to be installed on the new 2.5 installation. Verify by looking in the Joomla 1.5 extension manager. Many extensions do have a Joomla 2.5 version available so these would be ones that you will want to procure and install. For those that don’t have a Joomla 2.5 version either decide upon an alternative or leave this functionality out of the mix for the moment.
15. Install Akeeba Backup
16. Install and configure relevant extensions
17. Repopulate extensions, e.g. create galleries and upload pictures, for image galleries.
18. Test installation

Using JUpgrade to Migrate to Joomla 2.5

Note: JUpgrade works in a different manner to SP Upgrade. It also only migrates data but instead of installing into a blank Joomla 2.5x installation one just installs JUpgrade into the old Joomla 1.5 website. Once run JUpgrade will download and unpack the latest Joomla and migrate the appropriate data.

You will need to use JUpgrade if you have problems with SP Upgrade or if you need to port any of the following 3^rd party extensions:

• Adminpraise
• Kunena
• K2
• JoomComment
• Virtuemart
• redSHOP
• CommunityBuilder
• JCE
• Contact Enhanced
• JomSocial
• redFORM
• JEvents
• Akeeba Backup
• Jumi
• redMEMBER

1. Ensure you have CURL enabled
2. Download the latest version of JUpgrade  http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/migration-a-conversion/joomla-migration/11658
3. Install using the Extension Manager
4. 
5. Go to Extensions | Plugin Manager
6. Enable the “System – Mootools Upgrade” plugin
7. Go to Components | JUpgrade
8. Click on Parameters
9. Make sure you have appropriate values in the settings and turn on the debug option
10. Save
11. Start the migration. JUpgrade essentially downloads the latest copy of Joomla and installs it in the cmsroot/jupgrade/ folder ready for your joomla 2.5 upgrade
12. 
13. 
    
14. Wait for the completion message
15. 
16. Use the links for Site and Administrator to test your installation.
17. If you did port 3^rd Party extensions you will need to install the Joomla 2.5 versions of these in your new installation (remember it was only data that was ported and the old extensions would not work on Joomla 2.5 anyway).
18. Copy over your image files, e.g. you may copy the images/stories folder into the J2.5 images folder so that you do not need to realign links in your content
19. Choose and install a template (or port your existing template to J2.5)
20. Go into the module manager and change positions to match those of the new template
21. Make note of all extensions that need to be installed on the new 2.5 installation, i.e. the ones not ported by JUpgrade. Verify by looking in the Joomla 1.5 extension manager. Many extensions do have a Joomla 2.5 version available so these would be ones that you will want to procure and install. For those that don’t have a Joomla 2.5 version either decide upon an alternative or leave this functionality out of the mix for the moment.
22. Install Akeeba Backup
23. Install and configure relevant extensions
24. Repopulate extensions, e.g. create galleries and upload pictures, for image galleries.
25. Test installation

Finalising your Upgrade to Joomla 2.5

So last steps is to go through your new site, verify that all extensions are working, that there are no broken links and images and that all of your users have been ported over successfully.

There you go. Hopefully this will help you to upgrade to Joomla 2.5.