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The site uses the Bitnami Joomla Debian stack for Compute Engine. PHP for the original instance was 7.3 which is now end of life and extensions were giving me warnings. I attempted to use the OS upgrade options now available but following this the Joomla part of the site will not load/work... only the html splash/landing page.

My assumption is that the PHP update either didn't work and broke PHP or there is something involved in the bring the Joomla site or database up to using the new PHP version that is not part of the automated process. But I don't know where to look or what it might be. I have snapshots and backups so can always revert if I have to... but I'd prefer to complete the upgrade process. Assuming someone knows what the necessary missing steps are and can point me in the right direction.

Any help?

William Myers
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  • The first item I would look at is the PHP logs. Next, Google Search - you should be able to find a good debugging document on PHP + Joomla or at least PHP. My guess is the upgrade broke the existing PHP code. The log files should indicate the source file and line. I do not code with Joomla but I do with Laravel. However, the upgrade itself might have failed. Did you keep track of what you performed and the results? – John Hanley Dec 20 '21 at 03:00
  • Thanks for the response. Here is what I've learned over the past 24 hours or so: When you run an update on OS or PHP on a VM set up with the Google Cloud platform, whether by logging in on shell or through the console; you CAN update the version of the OS and/or PHP (or other aspects of the stack). However, if the installation was done as a package (ie Bitnami Joomla, which installs OS/Apache/PHP/SQL/etc as well as configures them and installs Joomla on top of it); it ONLY updates those aspects of the setup. None of the configuration on Joomla build is part of that... and ceases to work. – William Myers Dec 21 '21 at 04:03
  • So.. if you are running this sort of set up as I am; you cannot 'update' the underlying stack and still end up with a functional system. Instead you have to 'migrate' your installation, backing up the database and associated files; create a 'new' stack (or in Google's case, create a new instance of the VM) and then implement on top of it. It's... far from ideal. But that seems to be the option, shy of a LOT more in depth knowledge of Joomla and the necessary server operation than I have. – William Myers Dec 21 '21 at 04:10
  • Bitnami is a great solution that simplifies getting started **as a developer**. Bitnami has really good documentation. I would read that before updating a system. However, I recommend deploying Apache/Nginx, PHP, and Joomla directly so that you can control everything. Today, you want everything possible under GitHub to simplify the develop/test/deploy/rollback cycle and to prevent disasters. – John Hanley Dec 21 '21 at 04:25

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