Joomla User Manual

Terminology¶

Joomla! documents use a variety of terms to mean change from an older version to a newer version:

• Migration or mini-migration is a term usually applied to a change from an older to a newer Major version, sometimes through several interim Major verions.
• Upgrade is a term usually applied to a change from one recent version to the next version in a sequence of Minor versions.
• Update is a term usually used for the Upgrade process using the Joomla Update component. It is the word seen in the Administrator interface in Joomla! 3, 4 and 5. From now on the term Update will be used in this article.

See this article for a complete list of Joomla! CMS Versions.

It is also worth knowing that Joomla follows the Semantic Versioning standard. In brief, given a version number MAJOR.MINOR.PATCH, such as 5.1.0:

• The MAJOR version allows for backward compatibility breaks.
• The MINOR version allows for additional functionality in a backward compatible manner within the Major version.
• The PATCH version allows for backward compatible bug fixes.

There may be additional suffixes such alpha, beta or rc, but not in stable releases intended for production sites.

Reasons to Update¶

The reasons to update are many and varied:

• Security: although Joomla! is recognised as a very secure CMS, occasional vulnerabilities are discovered and fixed in Minor or Patch releases.
• Hosting changes: Joomla uses the PHP scripting language and a database server such as MySQL, MariaDB or PostGres. They progress through changes and hosting services need to keep up to date. So you may find that an older version of Joomla no longer works or fails to work if you move hosting service.
• Design changes: you may wish to make your site look better, work better with mobile devices and score more highly with search engines. You might have to meet legal Accessibility rquirements.
• Functionality: You may wish to use a Joomla extension that provides some feature not provided by core Joomla extensions. Choices may be limited by your current Major version.

Backup before Update¶

This is really important! Even if you have accomplished several interim updates it is possible that something may go wrong during the update process. This may leave your site broken. The standard advice offered in the Forums is revert to your last backup, find out why the backup failed, fix it and then try again.

Akeeba Backup is a free tool obtainable from the Joomla Extensions Directory (JED) to which you have direct access via System / Install Extensions / Install from Web. It only takes a minute or two to download and install. It analyses your system to configure a profile using a Configuration Wizard. It then makes a backup which you can download for safe-keeping.

Self Assessment¶

Before performing a Major or Minor version update you need to assess your system and your existing third party extensions for compatibility with the Joomla target version. It is a good idea to make a list of the third party extensions you have installed. In Joomla 4 and 5 the System / Extensions / Manage list has a filter to select None-core Extensions. This is not present in Joomla 3.

You could also use the Forum Post Assistant. This is a tool intended to analyse a site and make a report suitable for posting on the Joomla Forums to help the Forum experts diagnose problems with your site. However, it has a private user interface that tells you all about your site. Its extensions lists (Components, etc.) indicate which are 3rd Party.

The problems that arise during updates are usually associated with third party extensions not being code compatible with your target Joomla version. You should check each extension for compatibility and uninstall any that are known to be incompatible. You may be able to install compatible versions later.

You should set one of the default Site templates as your default template:

• Joomla! 1.5 default templates are Rhuk_milkyway, JA Purity, Beez.
• Joomla! 2.5 default templates are Atomic, Beez3, and Beez25.
• Joomla! 3 default templates are Protostar and Beez3.
• Joomla! 4 default template is Cassiopeia only.

Local Testing¶

If at all possible, it is best to set up a local testing environment on your laptop or home workstation to test your update procedure. You can use the backup of your online site to populate your test site. Your home site must be able to run your copy of your live site and have adequate PHP and Database specifications to run the updated site. There is a separate article describing how to set up a home testing environment.