Moving Joomla 1.5 website to new (modern) hosting... is MySQL DB not backwards compatible?

Question

Long story short, here's what i'm going to be trying to do:

There is a Joomla 1.5 website with MySQL (probably the version of MySQL that was around at that time). I need to move it to a newer hosting. I don't want to necessarily upgrade Joomla, I just want to move it over.

Are there any issues with moving Joomla to modern hosting? Is the MySQL DB backwards compatible... if... the newer hosting has a newer version of MySQL?

The reason i'm asking this is because i'm doing it for a friend. He hired an IT guy who's been failing to accomplish this for 2 months now. I was hesitant to help because i'm a Microsoft/IIS/ASP.NET guy... but it looks like i'll be pitching in now. The guy claims that the newer hosting has a new MySQL that doesn't want to work with the older SQL on the website.

Is this a simple task or is this guy really telling the truth?

Answer 1

You didn't mention what version of PHP your "modern" hosting server is running. FYI, Joomla 1.5.x generation is NOT compatible with PHP 5.4+.

Answer 2

Joomla 1.5 was built with PHP4 (i can say since the core code of Joomla 1.5 still used the "&" reference operator which in 1.7 didn't) and PHP4 code is still supported in PHP5. So no problem in the PHP issue.

The databases of Joomla normally come in MyISAM, but one time i converted them to InnoDB and there was no issues. I have read from an article somewhere that Joomla does not mind the differences in the DB since it does it's own table/row locking and it does it's own foreign key relationships (doesn't use the DB's foreign key functions)

also, Joomla has a config file. there, you change just about everything you see in the admin configuration page as well as the values that were set during installation (like FTP settings, database settings).

All you need to do before you move over is to back-up the site, export your database, take note of your destination DB username and password, know where the logs, cache, and/or temp folder for the destination and you are good to go. any other errors, you should see in Joomla.

if i may add, Joomla has an easy migration procedure for those who want to upgrade to the latest and preserve their site. however, if you use plugins and extensions, i suggest you check for updates for those extensions before you upgrade.

Answer 3

It all sounds very unusual.

If it's a Joomla 1.5 website then get Akeeba Backup (there's a free version that does everything thats needed).

Make a backup, copy it to the new server along with the kickstart script - browse to the kickstart script on the new server and follow the prompts. You will need all the usual stuff like the name of the new database, database user, password etc when the kickstart script runs. I recommend reading through the comprehensive documentation.

Answer 4

There are no problems running Joomla 1.5 on even the most modern hosting packages. Make sure you have updated to Joomla 1.5.25 first, which is the latest patch for that strain of Joomla. The reason that this is important (apart from security fixes) is that support for php 5.3 was only added sometime around 1.5.16, or 1.5.17 or so. Some hosts have 5.3+ so better to opt on the safe side. For MySQL - the Joomla 1.5 installation scripts use a deprecated keyword and won't install on MySQL 5.5. Most hosts use 5.1 so it shouldn't be a problem.

If you do have 5.5 on that server, however, here's a quick fix: Basically the sql file uses “TYPE=MyISAM” all over the place. TYPE has been deprecated and replaced with ENGINE. So if you want to do an install using the installer on MySQL 5.5 you would need to open the .sql and replace “TYPE=MyISAM” changing it to “ENGINE=MyISAM” and save. The installer should work now.

Aside: By the way, the easiest way to move Joomla is to use Akeeba Backup to make an archive of the site and database, upload it to the new server, extract and run the installer. Takes most of the hassle out of the process (if on 5.5 you still need to modify the .sql though).