How to Install Joomla on GoDaddy

A large percentage of our Joomla clients have their websites hosted with GoDaddy (GoDaddy is a very convenient hosting for many of our customers because this is where they bought their domains from), so we thought that writing a comprehensive and detailed post on how to manually install Joomla on a GoDaddy hosting would be beneficial for many people out there. Following is a step-by-step process, on how you can go about doing that.

Step 0: Download Joomla

Although this is not part of the Joomla installation process on GoDaddy, you will need to download Joomla. You can do this by going to http://www.joomla.org/download/ and download the Joomla zip file. You can download either Joomla 2.5.1 or Joomla 1.5.25 at the time of writing this article. In our example, we will choose to download and install Joomla 1.5.25 (Joomla 1.7 and Joomla 2.5.1 will not work on some GoDaddy servers, we have written an addendum at the end of the article explaining why). The download should take about 10-15 seconds on a high speed connection. Take note of of the location of the newly downloaded file. By default, the newly downloaded file will be called Joomla_1.5.25-stable-Full_Package.zip and should be located in your downloads directory.

Step 1: Access Your Hosting Control Panel with GoDaddy

The first thing that you need to do is to access your hosting control panel with GoDaddy. First you need to login, and then you need to launch the Hosting Dashboard:

• Login to your GoDaddy account by going to www.godaddy.com and filling in your username and password on the very top of the page.

• Once Logged in, click on My Account (located on the far right of the upper menu, next to Auctions), then click on Web Hosting (located in the middle of the page), and then click on the green button that says “Launch”.

• An alternative way of doing the above step is by hovering your mouse above Hosting and Servers on the top menu (next to Domains) and then clicking on Hosting Management, and then clicking on the green Launch button (which is located next to the Web Hosting account, and not next to Domains).

Note that you can install Joomla automatically on GoDaddy by clicking on the Joomla icon under Application. But if you do this GoDaddy will create a random database name and will choose for you a Joomla version that you may or may not want.

Step 2: Create the Database

Once you’re logged in to the Hosting Dashboard, the first thing that you need to do is to create the database, which can be done the following way:

• Click on Databases (Databases is located between Content and Statistics)

• Click on MySQL. This will take you to a page listing all your already created MySQL databases (if you have any). In this page, you will be able to create a new database.

• Click on Create Database on the top right. This will take you to the database creation form.

• Now That you are redirected to the database creation form, you will need to fill in the first four fields (ignore the last 3):

  • Description: This is the description of the database. It should be something like nameofyourjoomlawebsite. For example, if your website’s URL is mycheapbulbs.com, then fill in mycheapbulbs in the description. As we will later discover, the database description is the same as the database name.

  • MySQL Database/User Name: This is the name of the user that will be accessing your database. For simplicity reasons, we advise you to make the username the same as your domain name. Assuming your domain name is mycheapbulbs, then choose mycheapbulbs as the username.

  • New Password: This is the password of the user accessing your website.The password should consist of upper and lowercase characters and should contain numbers. Try to make the password 8-10 characters long. An example of a good password is: x4Lo0iqbUY.

  • Confirm Password: This is a confirmation of the previous password. In this field, you need to re-enter the password that you have already entered above. In our example, it’ll be x4Lo0iqbUY.

• Once you have filled the first four fields, you will need to click on OK. You will be redirected to the previous page, and you will see your newly created database, and next to it you will see Pending Setup (under Status). Now you have to wait for a few minutes (GoDaddy seems to have a CRON job that runs every few minutes that creates all the databases). After a few minutes, you can refresh the page, and you will see that the Status has changed to Setup.

• Setup means that your database is already created. Make sure that you have stored, in a safe place, the password entered above. Now while you are on the page titled MySQL (where you see the word Setup next to your database name), click on the pencil next to Setup. Clicking on the pencil will take you to a page where you’ll be able to find some important information about your database (that you will need later), which is the Host Name (which is something like p44mysql112.secureserver.net), the Database Name (which is the same as the database description), and the User Name. Copy and paste this information in the same place where you have already stored the password for this database. You will need this information during the installation of Joomla.

We have now finished creating the database – the next step is to copy all the Joomla files to our hosting account on GoDaddy.

Step 3: Copy the Joomla Files

Assuming that you have remained on the same page (where the information about the database is displayed), click on Home on the top left, and then follow the below guide (note that you can skip the first 2 steps if you have already created your domain):

• Click on Domains on the top center (next to FTP File Manager), and then click on Add Domain on the top right.

• In the popup window, click on Bulk (on the top), and then click on the name of your domain (which is MYCHEAPBULBS.COM in our example). The name of your domain should turn to blue once you click on it. Now click on the arrow pointing to the right, and then your domain should be displayed under Domains to Add. Under folder, you will need to enter your full domain name, so, in our example, we should enter /mycheapbulbs.com (Notice the necessary forward slash “/” at the beginning of the domain name). Now click on OK (the yellow button on the bottom right of the popup form). You will be redirected back to the page that lists all your domains, and the Status of the your newly added domain will be Pending. Wait a few minutes.

• Refresh the page in a few minutes, and the Status should be changed to Setup. We are now ready to copy the Joomla files into our newly created domain.

• Now click on Home on the top right and then click on FTP File Manager. This will take you to an interface where you can manipulate your files and upload files to your website.

• Click on the name of your domain under Filename. In our example, we should click on mycheapbulbs.com. This will take us to an empty directory. Now we need to upload the Joomla folder there.

• Click on the Upload button on the top menu (the Upload button is located just above Refresh List), and then click on Browse, and then choose the Joomla installation file that we have already downloaded in Step 0 above. Click on Open on the Windows popup browse menu, and then when you see the name of your Joomla zip file under Upload File(s) in the GoDaddy interface, click on Upload. The upload will take a minute or two depending on your Internet speed. You can see the progress of the upload on the middle right (below Overwrite files). Once the upload is finished, you will see the message 1 of 1 files completed. We have now uploaded the Joomla zip file to our website, we now need to extract it.

• Click on Cancel on the middle right of the screen (next to the yellow button OK) in order to hide the upload interface (we don’t need it anymore. Now click on the checkbox next to your Joomla zip file (which is Joomla_1.5.25-Stable-Full_Package.zip in our example), and then click on the Unarchive button on the top menu. Leave the destination as is and just click on OK (the yellow button on the middle right of the screen). Now wait a few seconds until the page refreshes and you should see all the Joomla folders (you will see the following folders: administrator, cache, cli, etc…). We have now finished copying the Joomla files on our GoDaddy hosting account. Our next step is to configure Joomla!

Step 4: Configure Joomla

Now we need to configure Joomla. Start by pointing your browser to http://mycheapbulbs.com/ and follow the below:

• First choose the default language (for our example, we will choose English (US)), and then click on Next on the top right.

• Now the next page consists of a pre-installation check – the pre-installation check will check that you have the minimum server requirements and the necessary modules to install Joomla (PHP version higher than 4.3.10, zlib, xml, and MySQL are all supported, and the configuration.php is writable). All GoDaddy servers meet the minimum requirements for Joomla 1.5.25. Click on Next on the top right.

• The next page consists of the Joomla license. Clicking on Next means that you have agreed to the license. (You will need to agree to the license in order to proceed with the installation)

• Now in this page you need to enter the MySQL information that you have stored earlier in a safe file. First enter the host name (which is something like p44mysql112.secureserver.net), and then the database name, which is mycheapbulbs in our example, and then the password, and then the database name, which is also mycheapbulbs in our example. Once you’ve filled in all the information, click on Next on the top right. (If you see an error like Unable to connect to the database:Could not connect to MySQL, then you most likely have made a mistake somewhere. Click on Previous on the top left and re-enter the information.)

• Now you’re taken to the FTP Configuration page, just click on Next on the top right. (You can set the FTP information later, and you don’t need it for the basic installation of Joomla).

• Now you’re taken to the Main Configuration page – on this page you will need to enter the name of your website (My Cheap Bulbs in our example), you will also need to enter your email, and the password of the main super-administrator to your website. Click on Next. Do not install any sample data when you are prompted to.

• Now go back to GoDaddy’s FTP File Manager and delete the installation directory (just click on the checkbox next to it and click on Delete on the top right and then click on OK.

• Congratulations! You have finished installing Joomla on GoDaddy. You can now edit your website by going to http://www.mycheapbulbs.com/administrator and entering admin as username, and the password entered above as your password.

We know that Joomla’s installation can be a daunting task – so if you’re having problems with installing Joomla on GoDaddy then please contact us. We are here to help and our rates are adequate for your budget!

Addendum: Why Your GoDaddy’s Hosting Is Not Compatible with Joomla 2.5.1 (or Joomla 1.7)

If you try to install Joomla 2.5.1 on your GoDaddy hosting account, you may see the following error:

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ‘=’, expecting ‘(‘ in /home/content/y/o/u/yourgodaddyusername/html/mycheapbulbs.com/includes/framework.php on line 42

In order to fix the above issue, you can go to the GoDaddy FTP File Manager and then click on the includes folder, and then click on the checkbox next to framework.php, and then click on Edit on the middle top menu. Once you’re in edit mode you should search for this line:

JError::$legacy = true;

and replace it with this line:

//JError::$legacy = true;

Click on the Save icon on the top left (it resembles a floppy disk), and then click on the close the file by clicking on the close icon on the top right.

Unfortunately, when you try to access the website right now, you will see yet another error that looks like this:

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ‘=’, expecting ‘(‘ in /home/content/y/o/u/yourgodaddyusername/html/mycheapbulbs.com/installation/index.php on line 66

This means that there is another file that you need to fix. So open the installation folder, and then edit the index.php file, Search for this line:

JError::$legacy = true;

and replace it with this line:

//JError::$legacy = true;

Now save the file and close it (the same way you saved and closed the framework.php file). Refresh your website and you will see this error: Your host needs to use PHP 5.2.4 or higher to run Joomla 1.7. Unfortunately, some hosting servers on GoDaddy run PHP Version 4.4.9. This is why Joomla 1.7 or Joomla 2.5.x will not work on GoDaddy, at least at the current time. GoDaddy’s PHP version for these servers is much lower than the minimum requirements. The solution to this problem is to tell GoDaddy to move you to a more recent server, or to move to another hosting company altogether.