Complete Guide for Joomla 1.5.26-2.5.X & VM1.X TO VM2.X/VM3.X MIGRATION

[paulyap2k]

[Update by Milbo: We recommened to use the almost foolproof Daycounts migrator http://extensions.virtuemart.net/import-export/virtuemart-migrator-detail]

After several migration attempts through combination of methods found online, finally got a working approach that successfully migrates Joomla 1.5.x to 2.5.4 and VM1.1.x to VM2.0.6. Doing this for my future ref as well as assisting those who're still in need of a working approach for both joomla and virtuemart migration

Step0: Do this migration on a test site, before moving it to a live site after testing.

Step1: To reduce complication, I have strip Joomla of all unnecessary extension and kept only VM and Akeeba Backup in place, and selected default template that comes with Joomla original install.

Akeeba Backup

Step2: Patch Joomla to latest 1.5.26 (patch up one version at a time using FTP to patch 1.5.x version to latest version
(stable patched package can be found @ http://docs.joomla.org/Joomla_1.5_version_history#Joomla.21_1.5.22 )

Akeeba Backup
Step3: Patch VM1.x to 1.1.9 (patch can be found @ http://virtuemart.net/downloads)

Akeeba Backup   (Name your backup to indicate a patched Joomla and VM version)

Steps4: Migrate Joomla First (install Jupgrade @ http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/migration-a-conversion/joomla-migration/11658), go through the migration with the guide steps. You will notice that VM is not migrated to the new jupgrade folder, it is ok at this stage not seeing your VM in the new Joomla 2.5 under newly created jupgrade folder.

Akeeba Backup  (Name your backup to indicate upgraded Joomla and old VM version)

Step5: Upgrade VM using this guide (http://dashhelp.com/tutorials/joomla-tutorials/75-migrate-virtuemart-1-1-9-to-version-2-0-updates) in the new Jupgrade admin folder (www.yoursite.com/jupgrade/administrator etc), in addition to following the guide in moving VM product images folder to "/var/www/yoursite/images/stories/virtuemart" folder, also create an identical copy in "/var/www/yoursite/jupgrades/images/stories/virtuemart". This image move is required before VM2.0.6 migration. If you have done the migration and did not see the image related to the product, doing the migration again will not help fix it. You will need to restart the step 5 process from last akeeba backup,(drop all database before restore, i decide to drop the DB for simplicity although only certain tables are required to be cleared)

Akeeba Backup  (Name your backup to indicate upgraded Joomla and Upgraded VM version)

Step6: Clean your web folder, and restore your new site at intended "var/www/yoursite/"

Note:
- I use "https://www.akeebabackup.com/download/official/akeeba-kickstart.html" to restore

Hope this guide help save you some time.

[Todd Qualls]

This will be a helpful guide for some who have a simple product offering, but others should be aware that if you have products in your store that used product "attributes" or "child products" in VM1, none of that data is migrated to VM2. It has to be recreated manually. If you have hundreds of products to migrate, this will be a major undertaking.

If you are not experienced with writing MySQL queries by hand to update your store, you *should not* be migrating to VM2 at this time.

[Shawn]

Your link for the VM upgrade tut is pointing to a deleted blog entry on Dash Help.

[paulyap2k]

Cut and paste steps 5 as the above URL is broken
-----------

1)    Rename the following folders, so that the installer has a clean slate to work with:
        [siteroot]/administrator/components/com_virtuemart
        [siteroot]/components/com_virtuemart

2)    Move shop images folder from folders within the main VM component from [siteroot]/components/com_virtuemart to [siteroot]/images/stories/virtuemart/ (you have to create the destination virtuemart sub-folder yourself).

3)   Disable Joomla Debug option in Joomla Global Configuration, if enabled.
    Uninstall all old VirtueMart extensions (components and modules). You could just disable or unpublish the extensions, but I found that this confused me once I got the new version of VM installed. I found it hard to tell which version of the modules were new and which were old.

4)  Download latest VM (2.0.6 on date of my migration) and extract files from zip file to separate folder. In Joomla Extension Manager, upload and install file com_virtuemart.2.0.6.tar.gz.
    Repeat above step for file com_virtuemart.2.0.6_ext_aio.tar.gz.  Upon successful installation, go to the VirtueMart administrative area and choose the VirtueMart "Configuration" section under the "Shop"    accordion control on the left side of the admin menu. Check the box for "Enable database Update tools".  Go to Tools accordion, then click Tools & Migration, then "Migration" Tab. Choose "Everything" and click "Start Migration".

5)   Pray to your God/Higher Power or maybe call your Mom. After the migration, before doing anything else, make sure that your default Joomla administrative user is identified as a vendor (no other shop configuration will be possible until you do this) as detailed here.  Go to the Shop accordion and click on "Shop". Some of your shop info from the old VM version will be filled in, but you must choose your default currency and fill in all required fields on the "Additional Information" tab. "Additional Information" is relative to the admin account you set as the "Vendor" in the previous step. Once you have done all of this, click save.

If all went well and you performed all of the steps above, you should now be able to browse your live site and VirtueMart shop. I went back and deleted those backup copies of the old VM component folders from before the migration. There's no sense in cluttering up our fresh new site.

[paulyap2k]

After several migration attempts through combination of methods found online, finally got a working approach that successfully migrates Joomla 1.5.x to 2.5.4 and VM1.1.x to VM2.0.6. Doing this for my future ref as well as assisting those who're still in need of a working approach for both joomla and virtuemart migration

Step0: Do this migration on a test site, before moving it to a live site after testing.

Step1: To reduce complication, I have strip Joomla of all unnecessary extension and kept only VM and Akeeba Backup in place, and selected default template that comes with Joomla original install.

Akeeba Backup

Step2: Patch Joomla to latest 1.5.26 (patch up one version at a time using FTP to patch 1.5.x version to latest version
(stable patched package can be found @ http://docs.joomla.org/Joomla_1.5_version_history#Joomla.21_1.5.22 )

Akeeba Backup
Step3: Patch VM1.x to 1.1.9 (patch can be found @ http://virtuemart.net/downloads)

Akeeba Backup   (Name your backup to indicate a patched Joomla and VM version)

Steps4: Migrate Joomla First (install Jupgrade @ http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/migration-a-conversion/joomla-migration/11658), go through the migration with the guide steps. You will notice that VM is not migrated to the new jupgrade folder, it is ok at this stage not seeing your VM in the new Joomla 2.5 under newly created jupgrade folder.

Akeeba Backup  (Name your backup to indicate upgraded Joomla and old VM version)

Step5: Upgrade VM using this guide (http://dashhelp.com/entry/migrate-virtuemart-1-1-9-to-version-2-0-updates) - link is broken, follow updated steps replacing step 5 below.

in the new Jupgrade admin folder (www.yoursite.com/jupgrade/administrator etc), in addition to following the guide in moving VM product images folder to "/var/www/yoursite/images/stories/virtuemart" folder, also create an identical copy in "/var/www/yoursite/jupgrades/images/stories/virtuemart". This image move is required before VM2.0.6 migration. If you have done the migration and did not see the image related to the product, doing the migration again will not help fix it. You will need to restart the step 5 process from last akeeba backup,(drop all database before restore, i decide to drop the DB for simplicity although only certain tables are required to be cleared)

Akeeba Backup  (Name your backup to indicate upgraded Joomla and Upgraded VM version)

Step6: Clean your web folder, and restore your new site at intended "var/www/yoursite/"

Note:
- I use "https://www.akeebabackup.com/download/official/akeeba-kickstart.html" to restore

Hope this guide help save you some time.

[Dog_Guy]

For non programmers, this high wire act seems just a tad scary.

I happen to have exactly the issue described in this thread, a need for joomla 1.5 and virtumart 1.1 upgrades.

Any ideas where I would find a trusted economical source of help to accomplish such a task?

Cheers,  Bruce

PS .....

from another thread "Please note that VM 2.0 does not contain ANY of the shipping or payment plugins that you are used to with VM 1. There are also currently none available for commercial or non-commercial use, at least none that I could find. This means that unless you know code and can write your own plugins, you cannot simply input your info like before and expect it to work. It doesn't. It can't, because they have not written them yet."

+++

[jenkinhill]

Your PS is a long time out of date now as there are plenty of plugins for VM2 now available and many more are being developed as our 3rd party developers recognise a need.

[Brunus]

Hi there.

Thanks for this guide.

I did have problems with the Virtuemart package 2.0.8e (latest at the moment I m publishing this message)
- The zip components did not install using the browse from my hard drive. I had to put in in a temp directory on the server to migrate and to unzip it.
- The migrator did not find the renamed tables.

To solve the migration problem, and to do thing cleanely I did :

- Migrate Joomla 1.5.26 to 2.5 (latest package)
- install langage pack if needed
- Moved the jupgrade directory to my test-server web root (/var/www in my case), to rename this directory giving the name of the previous directory.
- Moved the shop_image content in /images/stories/virtuemart
- Renamed the Virtuemart components folders
- Created a misfiles directory in the site root for the safe path on products to sale media files
- Then using the migration tool.

I had and error : Table userinfos check failed, spotting a problem on a ST adress...
Exept this, all seems to been migrated cleanely.

I realy think that migrating from a clean directory, and not with an administrator opened in the jupgrade folder inside the site tree is realy much better to avoid problems.

EDIT : Ok I think also that if you need a langage pack for Joomla 2.5, then install it BEFORE to do the Virtuemart migration. I did not do it and when I'm activating the langage pack for the site and for administrator then the categories and products are not anymore displayed both in frontend and backend. I think it's because cotegories and products Virtuemart tables are linked to langage pack.

[dagnome]

The out-of-date Dashhelp link in an earlier post was moved to this URL:

http://dashhelp.com/tutorials/joomla-tutorials/75-migrate-virtuemart-1-1-9-to-version-2-0-updates

It's current as of Sept 7, 2012

[athenken]

Would it possible at all to completely uninstall the current version of VirtueMart and just install the new version?  Would this be a viable way around having to jump through the update and migrate hoops?

[jenkinhill]

@ athenken, No.

[saviB]

Yeah, having a heck of a time with this. I followed all the steps here and in other migration posts. I get to the migration part and fail. The migrator runs, returns a report with 0 migrations and these errors:

        vmError: VmTableData Sef Alias in record is missing! Can't save the record with no Sef Alias.
        vmError: port Products db error Table 'jungd2012.j25_vm_product' doesn't exist SQL=SELECT *,`p`.product_id as product_id FROM `j25_vm_product` AS `p` LEFT JOIN `j25_vm_product_price` ON `j25_vm_product_price`.`product_id` = `p`.`product_id` LEFT JOIN `j25_vm_product_mf_xref` ON `j25_vm_product_mf_xref`.`product_id` = `p`.`product_id` WHERE (`p`.product_id) IS NOT NULL GROUP BY `p`.product_id ORDER BY `p`.product_parent_id LIMIT 0,1000
        vmError: port Products db error SELECT *,`p`.product_id as product_id FROM `#__vm_product` AS `p` LEFT JOIN `#__vm_product_price` ON `#__vm_product_price`.`product_id` = `p`.`product_id` LEFT JOIN `#__vm_product_mf_xref` ON `#__vm_product_mf_xref`.`product_id` = `p`.`product_id` WHERE (`p`.product_id) IS NOT NULL GROUP BY `p`.product_id ORDER BY `p`.product_parent_id LIMIT 0,1000
        vmError: port Orders db error Table 'jungd2012.j25_vm_orders' doesn't exist SQL=SELECT `o`.*, `op`.*, `o`.`order_number` as `vm1_order_number`, `o2`.`order_number` as `nr2`,`o`.order_id FROM `j25_vm_orders` as `o` LEFT OUTER JOIN `j25_vm_order_payment` as `op` ON `op`.`order_id` = `o`.`order_id` LEFT JOIN `j25_virtuemart_orders` as `o2` ON `o2`.`order_number` = `o`.`order_number` WHERE (o2.order_number) IS NULL ORDER BY o.order_id LIMIT 0,1000
        vmError: port Orders db error SELECT `o`.*, `op`.*, `o`.`order_number` as `vm1_order_number`, `o2`.`order_number` as `nr2`,`o`.order_id FROM `#__vm_orders` as `o` LEFT OUTER JOIN `#__vm_order_payment` as `op` ON `op`.`order_id` = `o`.`order_id` LEFT JOIN `#__virtuemart_orders` as `o2` ON `o2`.`order_number` = `o`.`order_number` WHERE (o2.order_number) IS NULL ORDER BY o.order_id LIMIT 0,1000

I've tried renaming the DB prefixes, adding tables with the Install tables or if necessary update them tool and still get nothing. I understand that I will most likely have to upload all 1300 products manually - but I'd be VERY, VERY happy if I could at least get my existing orders and users ported over. Any ideas? Seriously, any ideas at all?

[raycarter]

For Product Attributes Migraiion from VM 1.1.9 to VM 2.0

Follow this partial solution: http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=102083.msg338763#msg338763

Help me to improve it.

[djbeemer]

The out-of-date Dashhelp link in an earlier post was moved to this URL:

http://dashhelp.com/tutorials/joomla-tutorials/75-migrate-virtuemart-1-1-9-to-version-2-0-updates

It's current as of Sept 7, 2012

This new link also no longer works 

[mighty94033]

I have managed the migration of all products but non of the images are being installed. could anybody help??
I did get some safe path message
in one of the posts there is this

Created a misfiles directory in the site root for the safe path on products to sale media files

what is the misfiles??