As a newbie (really a lot to learn) I asked this question in an email and was asked to ask it in this forum..so here it is ...
I have a difficult (seems impossible) situation with my existing Joomla 1.5.22 site (www.appreciativeinquiry.net.au (http://(www.appreciativeinquiry.net.au))
in that the host/former webmaster has decided to give the game away (quit the business) and is not responding to phone or email messages.

I have attempted (as has the new (to be) host to backup this site but cannot and cannot update the version of Akeeba backup or copy the site because the permissions in the directories (my language/terms may bot be accurate) are set to unwritable and I cannot change them...does anyone there know if there is a training/work around in such a factual circumstance?

I have written and left messages for the old host to assist but so far they have not been answered. (Our relationship was fine and I paid all the bills :) )

So hoping that I can make some progress in this direction.

Hi and welcome to OSTraining, fairgo4all!

Yes, this tutorial in particular will be useful:

www.ostraining.com/blog/joomla/admin-too...and-file-permissions

I hope it lives up to it's title and is a quick and easy solution for you.

It turned out that my "old host" who eventually tried to change the permissions we had been unsuccessful in changing discovered that she too could not do it so had to raise the issue with her host (some sort of shared hosting arrangement) who resolved it, I am guessing that there is some sort of override permission control (that had been set by this hosts' host) that none of us were aware of ... so we were able to proceed with the migration of this www.appreciativeinquiry.net.au site

Tried to insert the URL but it doesn't look right...anyhow you , hopefully will get the drift, as they say.

Cheers

So is this one solved for you? Or is there another question in there somewhere?

Just FYI what happens on a server when a file or directory is created by a program, the server often assigns ownership of that file to the server. The only person who can change the ownership if it's owned at that level is someone with root access to the server.

Which is why you couldn't get it changed without contacting the actual host.

Cheers,
Ed