The challenge
CiviCRM ships for Joomla 5. The site had to move to Joomla 6.
NorCal CarciNET Community is a Northern California 501(c)(3) for people living with neuroendocrine tumors and their families. Donations, the Oakland Running Festival fundraising pages, event pages and the newsletter sign-up all run on CiviCRM.
CiviCRM’s Joomla package targets Joomla 5, and official Joomla 6 support is still an open task in CiviCRM’s own tracker. Patching CiviCRM core would have worked once and broken at the next update.
Goal: make CiviCRM work safely on Joomla 6 and upgrade the site, without breaking future CiviCRM updates.
Our approach
Fix it outside the core, then prove it survives an update
- Review versions & dependenciesJoomla, PHP and CiviCRM versions, and every extension the site relies on.
- Joomla 6 compatibility via extensions & hooksStarting from CiviCRM’s Joomla 5 package – no core file modifications.
- Test the CiviCRM update cycleInstalled a CiviCRM update and checked every fix was still in place.
- Upgrade the site to Joomla 6Existing template kept; DPCalendar, JCE, Akeeba Backup and Phoca Download updated and tested.
- Harden the CiviCRM cronAfter the host flagged heavy database load from cron, the job got a hard time limit so runs can’t pile up.
Screenshots
Front end and CiviCRM back end
CiviCRM back end: scheduled jobs
Scheduled mailings running on Joomla 6.
Donations & recurring gifts
One-time and recurring giving.
Fundraising & events
Fundraising pages and meetings.
Home page
Existing template, now on Joomla 6.
Timeline
Key dates
Nov 2025InquiryTwo CiviCRM sites need Joomla 6.
Dec 2025Quote & kick-offScope agreed: CiviCRM on Joomla 6, then both sites upgraded.
Mar 2026Cron hardenedTime limit added to the CiviCRM cron job.
Tech stack
What we worked with
Joomla 6
CiviCRM
DPCalendar
JCE Editor
Akeeba Backup
Phoca Download
