Joomla Update Causing Frontend and Backend Issues – Admin Panel 500 Internal Error

Question

Frontend Issue: Fox Contact Extension Compatibility

I recently updated a really old Joomla website from version 3.3 to version 3.10 to ensure compatibility with PHP 7. While the update was successful, I encountered an issue with the contact page due to the "Fox Contact" extension becoming obsolete. After the Joomla update, the contact page stopped displaying correctly showing me this error:

Is anyone else facing a similar issue with outdated extensions after updating Joomla? Any recommendations on how to address this specific issue or suggestions for alternative contact form extensions compatible with Joomla 3.10 would be greatly appreciated.

Backend Issue: Admin Panel 500 Internal Error and .htaccess

Additionally, the admin panel was showing a "500 Internal Server Error." Upon investigation, I discovered that the issue is related to the .htaccess file. When I renamed it, the admin panel displayed normally. However, not all the pages were accessible I couldn't edit articles or categories unless I switch back to php version 5.6. Here's the error showing in the admin page: and here's the htaccess file in administrator:

AuthType Basic
AuthName "administrator"
AuthUserFile "/home/africamultiple/.htpasswds/public_html/melico/administrator/passwd"
require valid-user

Are there specific changes that need to be made to the .htaccess file to resolve this issue? I really have to update php version as everything in the website is deprecated.

Any insights, suggestions, or troubleshooting steps to resolve these frontend and backend issues would be immensely helpful. Thank you in advance for your assistance!

Answer 1

The function name must be a string error generally happens the following way:

• You have function called myJoomlaFunction();
• You call it the following way: $myJoomlaFunction();

Notice the $ at the beginning.

It might be that an avalanche of errors has led to this error. When this happens, the most practical method to debug would be to disable 3rd party extensions one by one, and changing the template to a default one. Of course, enabling debug in Joomla should help, as well as setting the error reporting to the "maximum".