Hey all,
I’m getting ready to upgrade a Joomla 4 site to Joomla 5, but I’m using Helix Ultimate with a bunch of custom work: layout overrides, SCSS changes, some extra JS, and a few template tweaks through the backend.
Has anyone done the Joomla 4 to 5 upgrade with a customized Helix Ultimate template?
Did your overrides still work after the upgrade?
Did Helix behave the same on Joomla 5 or were there issues?
Anything you had to manually fix or rewrite?
Would you recommend trying to migrate it, or just rebuild the template clean on J5?
I’d rather not break the site or lose days fixing display issues, so any experiences or advice would really help.
Thanks!
Upgrading Joomla 4 to 5 with Helix Ultimate - Will My Custom Template Break?
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jasongarcia1
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danieljones
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Yeah I went through this not too long ago. I had a site on Joomla 4 running Helix Ultimate with a bunch of overrides, custom SCSS, and a couple JavaScript bits thrown in.
Thought the upgrade to 5 would be simple... it wasn’t lol.
Some of the template overrides held up fine, but stuff like the header and module positions got all messed up. I had to manually adjust a few things in the layout and double check the templateDetails file. Might’ve been my own messy code, not sure.
Also Helix didn't behave exactly the same after the upgrade. I was still on like version 2.0.11 or something, and Joomla 5 didn’t like it at all. Updating Helix first helped a lot, but I still had to redo some of the template settings - stuff like logo position and the offcanvas menu just reset on me for no reason.
One weird issue I hit - the JS I used for a sticky header stopped working completely. I had to rewrite it using vanilla JS cause the way scripts load seems a bit stricter now in Joomla 5.
I mean if you’re using a ton of customization, I’d definitely test on a staging site first. I wouldn’t start from scratch unless your template is totally outdated. Upgrading’s doable, just expect to do some cleanup.
What Helix version are you running anyway? Maybe I ran into the same stuff.
Thought the upgrade to 5 would be simple... it wasn’t lol.
Some of the template overrides held up fine, but stuff like the header and module positions got all messed up. I had to manually adjust a few things in the layout and double check the templateDetails file. Might’ve been my own messy code, not sure.
Also Helix didn't behave exactly the same after the upgrade. I was still on like version 2.0.11 or something, and Joomla 5 didn’t like it at all. Updating Helix first helped a lot, but I still had to redo some of the template settings - stuff like logo position and the offcanvas menu just reset on me for no reason.
One weird issue I hit - the JS I used for a sticky header stopped working completely. I had to rewrite it using vanilla JS cause the way scripts load seems a bit stricter now in Joomla 5.
I mean if you’re using a ton of customization, I’d definitely test on a staging site first. I wouldn’t start from scratch unless your template is totally outdated. Upgrading’s doable, just expect to do some cleanup.
What Helix version are you running anyway? Maybe I ran into the same stuff.
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jasongarcia1
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Ah yeah, that sounds all too familiar...
I had almost the same situation. Was using Helix Ultimate on J4 with some layout overrides and a bunch of tweaks in the CSS/JS. Went into the J5 upgrade thinking “how bad could it be?” and then boom... nothing looked right
For me, the offcanvas menu just straight up disappeared. Like, the toggle was there but nothing opened. Took me a while to figure out it was some JS conflict, probably because I was loading an old version of jQuery manually (yeah, I know… bad idea lol). Switched it out and rewrote a few lines and it worked again.
Also ran into that weird reset with the logo and menu settings in the Helix panel. Not sure why they don’t carry over. I ended up exporting the settings before upgrading just in case — might be worth doing if anyone else is reading this.
Btw I was on 2.0.14 I think. Not sure if they fixed some of that stuff in the newer builds yet. Kinda wish Helix would drop a solid upgrade checklist or something.
Anyway, totally agree - test on a clone site first, especially if you've got custom JS or overrides floating around. You on a live site already or still prepping?
I had almost the same situation. Was using Helix Ultimate on J4 with some layout overrides and a bunch of tweaks in the CSS/JS. Went into the J5 upgrade thinking “how bad could it be?” and then boom... nothing looked right
For me, the offcanvas menu just straight up disappeared. Like, the toggle was there but nothing opened. Took me a while to figure out it was some JS conflict, probably because I was loading an old version of jQuery manually (yeah, I know… bad idea lol). Switched it out and rewrote a few lines and it worked again.
Also ran into that weird reset with the logo and menu settings in the Helix panel. Not sure why they don’t carry over. I ended up exporting the settings before upgrading just in case — might be worth doing if anyone else is reading this.
Btw I was on 2.0.14 I think. Not sure if they fixed some of that stuff in the newer builds yet. Kinda wish Helix would drop a solid upgrade checklist or something.
Anyway, totally agree - test on a clone site first, especially if you've got custom JS or overrides floating around. You on a live site already or still prepping?
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jasongarcia1
- Posts in topic: 3
- Posts: 3
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Yeah I’m still prepping, not live yet luckily. Got a local copy running where I’m trying to iron things out first. Helix version’s 2.0.15 right now, so I guess it's fairly up-to-date… but honestly still running into small annoying stuff here and there.
Funny you mentioned the offcanvas menu — same thing happened to me. Toggle showed up, but nothing happened when I clicked it. At first I thought it was some CSS visibility issue, but nope… turns out it was clashing with an old scroll-to-top script I forgot I had in there lol.
Also, the typography settings just didn’t apply after the upgrade. Had to re-save them manually in the template settings, even though they looked fine in the backend. No idea why that happens.
Exporting the Helix config is a good shout, wish I had done that earlier. I’m kinda tempted to just strip out some of the junk I added before and go a bit cleaner this time.
Anyway, if you come across any fix for those random resets, def drop it here. I’ll do the same. Might help the next person avoid the same rabbit hole
Funny you mentioned the offcanvas menu — same thing happened to me. Toggle showed up, but nothing happened when I clicked it. At first I thought it was some CSS visibility issue, but nope… turns out it was clashing with an old scroll-to-top script I forgot I had in there lol.
Also, the typography settings just didn’t apply after the upgrade. Had to re-save them manually in the template settings, even though they looked fine in the backend. No idea why that happens.
Exporting the Helix config is a good shout, wish I had done that earlier. I’m kinda tempted to just strip out some of the junk I added before and go a bit cleaner this time.
Anyway, if you come across any fix for those random resets, def drop it here. I’ll do the same. Might help the next person avoid the same rabbit hole
