Help with access to outdated TYPOlight (Contao) website

[mastwo]

Hi there,

I was kindly instructed by an admin to register an account and post my issue on here as the international forum isn't actively maintained. However, I'm not sure if I'm posting under the right category, so if that's not the case, please do let me know. I also do read some German, so if anyone with an answer prefers to reply in German instead of English, then I would gladly receive that!

Here's my issue:
My mother had a website made for her back in 2009/2010, using TYPOlight for her frontend(?) and PhpMyAdmin for her database. The website does not seem to have been touched since. Now she wants to have access to some photographs of her old paintings, that she apparently used to upload to her website via TYPOlight. However, she doesn't recall where nor how she used to do this, which after a lot of digging through old mails and talking to her provider (one.com), has finally led me here.

Accessing her website (www.woschek.dk) will display a whitelabel page with only the following error message:

Fatal error: __autoload() is no longer supported, use spl_autoload_register() instead in /customers/6/1/d/woschek.dk/httpd.www/system/functions.php on line 36

On the surface, it seems to be an easy fix given that the answer appears to be right there in the error message. However, I'm assuming this would still require access to her frontend source code, which neither she nor I know how to do. Being able to gain access to her old photographs is the only thing that matters to her. Having a functioning website again is just a bonus.

So with all of this in mind, I would like to finally ask, how do I help my old Mutti get access to her frontend again after almost 13 years of inactivity and 0 years of experience in Contao?

Thank you!

[folkfreund]

Hello mastwo, welcome to the Contao forum!

This is a really old site, maybe we can find a place in the museum for it ?

For any action you will need at least some sort of file access to the server. I assume your mother has/had a FTP account. Your provider might be able to help with that. Then you will have access to the uploaded pictures and can save them locally on your PC.
In case you want the website up and running again, you could use a fresh install of Contao LTS. Just repairing the issue will most probably not work since the old PHP version needed is no longer supported by the servers, not talking about all the security issues that have been fixed since then.

Do I understand right, the main reason is the presentation of some fotos? There might be other solutions which are easier to use for that compared to Contao. Can you tell us more about the purpose of the site?

Best regards,
folkfreund

[mlweb]

@folkfreund You can see the page in the site archive https://web.archive.org/web/20170704...://woschek.dk/

[mastwo]

Hello mastwo, welcome to the Contao forum!

This is a really old site, maybe we can find a place in the museum for it ?

For any action you will need at least some sort of file access to the server. I assume your mother has/had a FTP account. Your provider might be able to help with that. Then you will have access to the uploaded pictures and can save them locally on your PC.
In case you want the website up and running again, you could use a fresh install of Contao LTS. Just repairing the issue will most probably not work since the old PHP version needed is no longer supported by the servers, not talking about all the security issues that have been fixed since then.

Do I understand right, the main reason is the presentation of some fotos? There might be other solutions which are easier to use for that compared to Contao. Can you tell us more about the purpose of the site?

Best regards,
folkfreund

Thanks for the reply and the warm welcome!

The whole purpose of this is so that she has the uncompressed and raw image files of her paintings back on her local PC. However, it would also be really nice if it were possible to bring the website back to life again. The website is basically just a portfolio of all of her work and the stories behind them.

So correct me if I'm wrong, but is it through the provider that users normally gain access to their files, not the CMS which would be TYPOlight (Contao) in this case? My mother mentioned it was TYPOlight she used, but she did not sound too convincing to be honest. I guess if I had access to the source code of the website, I could also re-create it on a fresh install of Contao, as you mentioned. That would be really nice!

[folkfreund]

So correct me if I'm wrong, but is it through the provider that users normally gain access to their files, not the CMS

Yes, if you have access to the webspace (e.g. via FTP) then you can download the raw image files as well as access the code of the CMS.
The CMS generates the web pages when a visitor calls the site in his browser. It seems the CMS was made to make it easy for your mother to upload new pictures and write a bit of accompanying text.

Please check for any notes about that FTP account or ask your provider for help on that.

[Kommunalo]

Dear mastwo,

please don't forget to make a backup of your mother's database on your PC. Within this copy of the database as .CSV-File for example you may find all text that your mother wrote with TypoLight (now called Contao). You can do this with PhpMyAdmin.

I guess it woud be easier and less work to install a new and actual version of Contao (4.13.x LTS or 5.0.x) than upgrade it from version 2.9, if it is possible at all.

[mastwo]

Thanks so much everyone! I will try contacting her provider again and see if they can't help me and mother gain access to her frontend again. I will also make that backup of her database just in case (great idea!).

Have a great weekend

[folkfreund]

... gain access to her frontend again.

I'm afraid, you will not get the frontend (the working website) back again.
But with file access to the webspace you will be able do download the images and also retrieve the texts from the database, as Kommunalo suggested.

Good luck and a nice weekend!