How to Migrate your Articles to Joomla 2.5 with J2XML
Follow along as I migrate a site from Joomla 1.5 to Joomla 2.5. Although there is no all-in-one solution to migrate your site (and rightfully so, as Joomla 1.5 and 2.5 are completely different systems), there is a great tool out there for importing your content into 2.5. Content, as in your articles, categories, images and authors.
J2XML is the perfect component for exporting and importing your content. Its actually two separate components. The process is simple. First install the J2XML Exporter on your Joomla 1.5 site. This allows you to export your articles or entire categories, including images and authors, into an XML file. Then, install the J2XML Importer on your Joomla 2.5 site to simply import the XML file. That's it! J2XML will create the categories, images, users/authors and all other info associated with the articles you exported.
Among it's powerful features, the J2XML Importer allows you to maintain content ID's. This is extremely helpful in terms of SEO, since Joomla includes content ID's in your site's URLs. Most likely, the search engines have already indexed the URLs of your Joomla 1.5 site. So making sure the content ID's remain unchanged ensures that your URL index will remain intact, with minimal dead ends or 404 "Page Not Found" errors.
Overall, J2XML is a solid solution for helping you migrate to Joomla 2.5. A big Thank You and two thumbs up to Helios Ciancio and the folks at http://www.eshiol.it/ for making such a useful tool!
Have you used J2XML, or another tool to help migrate to Joomla 2.5? Leave a comment, I'd love to hear your story.
- Tags: Joomla 1_5, Joomla 2_5, Joomla upgrades, migration
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Scott Greenwald
Scott Greenwald is a web development professional, with roots in front-end UI design. He's been a Joomla addict since 2007, and a contributing author to the Joomla! Community Magazine. Subscribe to our YouTube channel for more Joomla tutorials! Scott on Google+
Comments (38)
Goyat LLC
Scott, your tutorial video is very good. I was not realized this site belongs to you.
Norito from Yokohama
Goyat LLC
Scott Greenwald
Thank You Norito! I know you make good stuff too. Feel free to submit some of your Joomla work to the site showcase: http://joomladirect.com/site-showcase/
uxg
Thank you Scott. Neat tutorial.
I tried to follow this link, http://www.eshiol.it/joomla/j2xml/j2xml-importer-1600.html
& export users, but got an Invalid Token error.
The suggestion is to export data in portions as the error is due to large data, but that did not work either.
Would appreciate any suggestions ?
Thanks !
Scott Greenwald
In this video, I did only export a few articles at first. I did get errors trying to export sections. But I ended up exporting each category successfully. Some of the categories had over 100 articles. I'd suggest the forums if you need help from the developer. http://www.eshiol.it/forum.html
Maximilian
Hey,
very good tutorial! I tried it myself and everything works fine except one thing: It didn't keep the ids which are very important. i tried it again excactly the way you did but it aint work. whitout correct ids every link on the page is wrong since they are connected to the id...
Scott Greenwald
Make sure you're using the latest version of both the Exporter and Importer components, and that the 'Export Id's button is checked. I had a similar problem at first, then realized I had accidentally installed an older version of the component.
Janis Keim
I am loving these two extensions! They are working better than anything else I have tested when "upgrading" from J15 to J25. When importing, if I get a message that says Invalid Token, I assume I can simply re-export those articles. True assumption?
Also, do Menus get exported/imported in the same process? I think that's the only thing left for me to check off the list, aside from reconfiguring modules/components (assuming the same template is being used and is compatible with J25)
Great extensions - best I've found so far!
Thanks!
Janis
Scott Greenwald
Hi Janis! I've gotten the Invalid Token message when trying to import large xml files, in the 20mb range. Excluding images helped to reduce the xml's size. And yeah, it's a bummer that J2XML doesn't export Joomla's menus. I ended up having to manually change the menu IDs in my database.
Anne Marie Notarthomas
Thank you! Very clear directions. Helped me better understand issues with one upgrade I need to tackle!
Joseph
Hi Scott,
I started my site with Joomla 1.5, and upgrade to 2.5 using jUpgrade. I guess I have some issue in my database (lots of other people also complain in the forum) and would like to start a fresh Joomla 2.5, but would like to transfer all the articles.
Is there any tool that I can use? Or could you make tutorial how to transfer Joomla articles manually from 2.5 to 2.5?
Scott Greenwald
I've heard a lot of people have had trouble with jUpgrade, sorry to hear you're in that camp. As far as transferring articles between Joomla 2.5 sites goes: I'm not sure if the new version of J2XML includes this feature. But I would probably go about it manually, by exporting the relevant tables from the mysql database, and importing them into the source site's database. This can be done easily using phpMyAdmin. Maybe a good idea for a future tutorial.
Royal
You are great man...i looked for how to transfer my articles from 1.5 to 2.5...God Bless You!
sahar
hi, icant install j2xml in joomla 1.5.26
the error is:
Error! Could not find a Joomla! XML setup file in the package.
please help me
Scott Greenwald
Hi Sahar. I've never had problems installing J2XML. If you're sure you are installing the correct zip file found here http://www.eshiol.it/joomla/j2xml/j2xml-1503.html
Then, try the forums or contacting the developer, Helios.
sahar
hi again , now i have problem with importing articles , i have a lot of errors that is shown below:
User شقایق کاشانی not imported. An error occurred.
User name in use
Category Products/ویدیو کنفرانس not imported. An error occurred.
Category YOOtheme/ATcom scroller not imported. An error occurred.
Category YOOtheme/Grandstream scroller not imported. An error occurred.
Category YOOtheme/Snom scroller not imported. An error occurred.
Article IP Phones Snom not imported. An error occurred.
Another article from this category has the same alias
Article IP Phones ATCOM not imported. An error occurred.
Another article from this category has the same alias
Article IP Phones grandstream not imported. An error occurred.
Another article from this category has the same alias
Article تخفیف ویژه سال نو میلادی not imported. An error occurred.
JTableContent: :store failed
Sophie Johansson
Thank you so much. I have been messing around all day, trying to get it working with JUpgrade. This is much cleaner!
sam
Hi,
I dont have the old joomla website now but i have the old database, the sql file in my hosting php myadmin... is it possible export the jos_content table as an XML file and then import using this component?
if so how should i export the data and and how can i import the data?
Scott Greenwald
I'm not sure, but you can try searching for a SQL command that will convert your tables to an xml file, which basically is what J2XML does. Try contacting the developer for more details. Another option is to set up a dummy site to import your sql database into. Depending on the version of your old Joomla site, you can check the Joomla archives for the installation package. If that works, you should be able to use J2XML as it was intended.
Carlos
Hello!! Im migrating articles from joomla 1.5.11 to 2.5, but a got this message "Category Mensajes/Mensajes not imported. An error occurred.", all other fields are imported correctly. It's J2XML merging category + section in 1.5 to section + subsection in 2.5??
Thanx!!
Scott Greenwald
Are you exporting from a section or a category? And is it possible the category was already imported?
Sascha
Hi all,
i had the "invalid token" error too. Compressing the xml file solved the problem. the original file had a size of 8 mb, the compressed one only 1.3mb.
Lena
Great tutorial!
Sean
Hey scott, thanks for the great article really came in handy although my server is a bit slow so im having to export bit by bit.
Just wondered if you knew about an easy way to export my comments i was using jomcomment may move to disqus? any help really appreciated!
Scott Greenwald
Yeah, J2XML only exports Joomla core items. Check with the developers of the Disqus extension for an import utility.
Manos
I did exactly what you described but when importing articles I get the following message :
64 - XML declaration allowed only at the start of the document
File format unknown. Impossible to import file.
Scott Greenwald
I’m not sure what that means. Contact the extension developer, or checkout forum posts on his site: http://www.eshiol.it/
Manos
Thank you Scott for your reply, There is a solution to this problem I found in the eshiol.it but I can't really understand what I have to do. Can you please check what they exactly mean in this link ? >>> http://www.eshiol.it/en/forum/general-questions/192-errors-on-importing-an-xml-into-170.html
Thanks a lot !!
Scott Greenwald
In that post, it looked like a problem with google analytics on the 2.5 site. If you dont have google analytics installed, then I'm not sure what the problem is. Try posting on the developers forum, he seems like he will provide personal help.
Manos
I have already posted the problem in the forum just below the same topic since they had the same problem and it was solved.
But as you will see the answer was not so clear again , it was saying that I have to delete the characters before the tag .
and i asked them again (where and what to delete) as you will see below.
http://www.eshiol.it/en/forum/general-questions/192-errors-on-importing-an-xml-into-170.html?limit=6&start=6#567
Waiting for their answer.
Scott Greenwald
If you don't get a reply, try email the developer from his contact form. I did that a couple times and got answered faster.
popllama
Thanks for the clear simple presentation. very helpful and has played a significant role in our decision path. Well done...
Manos
ANYBODY ELSE HAVING THE FOLLOWING ERROR , WHEN IMPORTING FROM 1.5 TO 2.5 ??? >>>>>>>>
64 - XML declaration allowed only at the start of the document.
File format unknown. Impossible to import file.
Daniel
Maybe it is a little help for someone who has the same problem that i´ve had with "File format unknown. Impossible to import file."
I tried to export and import only 5 articles and it worked.
Every XML-file wihich was bigger than 2,5mb did not work.
Sorry for my bad english - hope i could help somebody...
Scott Greenwald
Thanks for the tip Daniel!
What you experienced is normal. Most shared servers don't have enough memory to export or import large xml files. Exporting and importing in smaller batches should solve most problems. Also keep in mind that images in the articles will significantly increase the size of the xml file.
yuri
I can export and import user whit that component?
Scott Greenwald
If you want to import registered users, who are not article authors, then it might be simple enough to do this straight from you mysql database. Just export the '_users' table. Then import this table into your new database.
omaster
Great tutorial! thanks!!
Thomas
Please make an Importer for Joomla 3...