Save Button Not Working After Migrating Joomla

We are migrating many Joomla websites (from version 1.5.x to the latest 2.5 version) these days and a common problem that we see is that once we finish the migration, and we make the website live, the “Save” button (as well as many button in the Joomla menu) stops working. This is normal – and it’s because our method of migrating Joomla consists of creating a sub-directory in the main website’s directory, ensuring that the website works normally under that sub-directory, and then moving the contents of that sub-directory to the directory of the main Joomla website, essentially overwriting the Joomla 1.5 version of the website with the Joomla 2.5 version. You might now think, “how are these two things related to each other?”

Well, when you migrate this way (by creating a sub-directory for the Joomla 2.5 version and then moving it up one level), you are causing some caching issues (not to mention, of course, some login issues) at the browser level. The browser becomes confused a bit, and there are two ways to unconfuse the browser and solve this problem:

  1. Clearing your browser cache: Clearing your browser cache ensures that your browser has the latest version of your website – and that there are no cached JavaScript libraries that are conflicting with your Joomla’s functionality.

  2. Resetting your Joomla admin template: Resetting your Joomla admin template consists of switching from one admin template to another (usually from Bluestork to Hathor) and back (when you do this, Joomla instructs the browser that its cached version of JavaScript files is not up-to-date, and it needs to be refreshed). So, for example, if you’re using Bluestork (which is the default template) as the template for your administrator area, all you need to do is to switch to the Hathor template and then switch back to Bluestork. Changing the template of your admin area can be done in the same place where you change the template for your site (under “Extensions”->”Template Manager”).

We think that this is an annoying bug in Joomla and can cause a lot of anxiety for those that migrate their Joomla websites by themselves (because they think that they did something wrong during the migration process when they really didn’t). We hope that this bug will be fixed in a later installment of the Joomla 2.5 series.

Now if you’re trying to migrate your Joomla website to the latest version and you’re having problems during the process, then all you need to do to get help is to contact us. We’re friendly, we’re fast, we’re very knowledgeable about Joomla, and our prices are very affordable.

7 Responses to “Save Button Not Working After Migrating Joomla”
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  1. Comment by Amer — March 31, 2013 @ 9:54 pm

    Hello,

    Just wanted to let you know that his saved me hours of debugging! Yeah, I do my migrations the same way and I could not figure out for the life of me why I could not save anything…

    Thanks for the help!

  2. Comment by Stig Yding Sørensen — March 29, 2014 @ 10:22 am

    Thank you for this information.

    Before reading your informative article I have spent a couple of days following all kind of complicated suggestions from QA sessions. This is an extremely annoying problem. I have upgraded to 3.2 and the problem continued. But this is the first full explanation I have found and it works. I am happy.

    Thank you so very much!

  3. Comment by Ned — June 20, 2014 @ 4:43 pm

    Hello,

    I didn’t work out for me. I scanned every single forum about article “Save” button not working :(

    I think it has something to do with this message but don’t know how to fix it

    “TypeError: document.formvalidator is null contact-us:1251”

    Thank you for your help

    Running Joomla 2.5.22

    Ned

  4. Comment by Fadi — June 21, 2014 @ 10:08 am

    Hi Ned,

    This is definitely a JavaScript issue. Check your plugins to see if there’s a global (backend and frontend) plugin that is generating the problematic JavaScript code (try disabling your plugins one by one until the problem is no more).

  5. Comment by Alan Fuller — August 7, 2014 @ 4:09 pm

    Same problem, no search returned a solution but I solved the problem. It is the editor that caused the problem. I was using JCE and I saw in the console an error in the editor. So I changed the editor to TinyMCE via global config and voila! Problem solved. I have not tried switching back to see of JCE now works but I can now save.

  6. Comment by Gav — June 11, 2015 @ 10:45 am

    Simple solution to an annoying issue. Thankfully your blog comes up top in a quick search. Thanks

  7. Comment by Fadi — June 12, 2015 @ 10:21 am

    Hi Gav,

    Yes – it’s super annoying. The thing is some browsers are becoming more aggressive when it comes to caching (yes, we’re talking about you, FireFox), so pressing CTRL + SHIFT + R to refresh the cache sometimes doesn’t delete the cached JavaScript files, and you will need to delete the cache from the browser’s privacy settings.

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