Today, I started with my first trial migration from Joomla 1.5.25 to Joomla 2.5.1.

Used my own site for this, I kind of want to be on Jomla 2.5 asap.

So. How to start.

Finding some documentation on the subject is still a bit difficult, some links in the joomla docs go to a blanc site like this one: Migrating from Joomla 1.5 to 2.5

Maybe the page will be filled sometime after I post this message, but at the moment it is anything but helpfull.

• I did however find this one: Migrating from Joomla 1.5 to Joomla 1.6+
• And then there is this one: How to Migrate or Upgrade Joomla 1.5 to 1.6

So those will have to do.

My first point of action is making a list of my extensions, are they ready for 2.5 or can I find an alternative, is my site clean and such...

• Joomla most recent version: 1.5.25
• Easyblog most recent version 3.0.7796
• Gantry template framework latest version 3.1.18
• JCE content editor latest version 2.0.20
• RocketTheme modules and such, they are up-to-date so no problem there
• ArtBook, there is a 2.5-version available

Then I also have a twitter module, which hasn't been updated for Joomla 2.5 yet:

• JoomlaWorks Latest Tweets - no joy

That will not be a show-stopper, I'm sure I can find another module to show my tweets on my site.

All right. All set. Let's get a copy of the jUpgrade extension. Latest verion at this moment is 2.5.0. Downloaded it. Ready to go.

• STEP 1 -backup my site. Done.
• STEP 2 -activate the Mootools Upgrade Plugin. DOne.
• STEP 3 -install jUpgrade 2.5.0. Done.
• STEP 4 - start jUpgrade. Done.

So far, so good. jUpgrade did it's job, and in the end gave me this nice overview, which is promising.

Taking a look with FTP I can see a directory /jupgrade, which now contains my Joomla 2.5.1 site. Quickly going to the back-end, trying to login with my regular login details works. I'm in.

Taking a quick look at my menu's and they seem to be there. Of course, menu items to extensions that are not there, like my blog, are a dead-end, but that was to be expected.

So, Joomla 2.5 doesn't have sections anymore, let's check what happened there. Looking good, the sections are now main category level, with the old categories now being a sublevel.

This probably means you need to take a look at your menu items that were of the blog-section or list-section type, but I don't have those, so I don't know how jUpgrade would have handled that.

Articles are there. Only the column Show on Frontpage is gone, and now that might be the Features column. Nothing is checked though, so that is something to correct. Bet my frontpage looks quite empty now.

JCE editor: is gone. So much for jUpgrade being able to migrate this extension. It didn't. Don't know why.

So this is what I had, and this is what I got after migrating with jUpgrade:

 Does this make me a happy camper? NO! Not at all.

 My main problem is that my menu items to single articles don't work anymore. It doesn't take very long to figure out why, by migrating the content, all ID's a have been mixed up, or basically, jUpgrade inserts it in a certain sequence, creating new ID's as it goes. So your menu items, who link to articles based on article ID's, cannot find said articles. D'uh.

Now my site isn't that big that I couldn't just sit down and recreate my menu-links. The problem is, I have many sites to migrate, and especially the ones with lots of content? This is NOT what I want to be facing. That is just not acceptable. This is a major mess-up of your site. Not only your menu, but internal links, google stuff... who knows what will be affected by this?

So. Let's see if I can find a plan B. I'll be back.