Are these “End of Support” notifications useful or are they just nuisances?
Enough’s enough! How do I make these EOS notices go away?
In my previous article “No one is forcing anyone to use Joomla 4.x”, we discussed how a series of End of Support [EoS] notices—their tone increasing in seriousness from “informational” to “error” severity—were sending jitters up the spines of some people who use the Joomla CMS. Well, to be fair, these notices were only worrying those people who occasionally visit their websites once every few years and discover there is some “news” and who mostly dismiss the “news” because it’s too technically complicated. I don’t wish to imply that the people who read my blog are lazy or incompetent but the facts are that people are clueluess about how to migrate from one major version of J! to another. That’s why, every day, we read half a dozen new questions on the J! forum about how to upgrade from one version of J! to another.
When people who use J! 4.4.x visit the backend of their websites, they will be greeted with a message at the top of the screen like this:
This is the current end-of-support notice for Joomla 4.x
All “nice and friendly”: there’s even a big orange button to let you “snooze” a little longer, for the time being anyway, but from 17 October next year you will be nagged every time you visit the backend of your J! website until you do something about them … like upgrading your website from J! 4.x to J! 5.x … or wishing you could throw the alarm clock out the window … or wishing you never used J! in the first place, perhaps. Nag, nag, nag.
These message escalate in severity, from benign “informational” reminders, then becoming “warnings”, and ultimately “errors”. The images at the right of the screen show how those messages will appear over time, starting on 17-Dec-2023, changing every six months, until the last message will appear on 17-Oct-2025. These messages can be temporarily hidden, by clicking the close icon located in the top right corner, these messages will reappear every time you visit the backend “home page”. The informational and warning messages can be “snoozed” by clicking the orange button but the final “error” phase cannot be snoozed.
What will happen on 25-Oct-2025?
On 25 October 2025, support for J! 4.x will end. This means that there will be no further releases for J! 4.x after that date. But what does “end of support” mean and what will happen to your existing J! 4.x website(s)? Again, let us be very clear: there is no official support for Joomla.There has never been any official support for Joomla; you are responsible for maintaining your J! websites and if you encounter problems with them. Joomla is an open source content management system, developed by a team of volunteers. Although the software is usually tested before new releases are distributed, there is no guarantee that any software will meet all of your needs. There is a suggestion that “errors” may occur after 17 October 2025 (in the event that a serious security defect has been found, but I can’t remember that happening. When people encounter problems with Joomla there are a number of self-help resources such as online documentation, forums, internet articles, books and videos that people can use.
Based on past experience, these self-help resources will not disappear on the EoS date. If anything, these resources will remain accessible for many years to come. Therefore, based on past experienceDocumentation, online help forums, books, videos and articles about previously unsupported versions of Joomla still exist today. Indeed the official Joomla Forum still allows questions to be asked about J! 1.x, J! 2.5, J! 3.x and J! 4.x going back over the past nineteen years., we can safely assume that your J! 4.x websites will continue to function after the EOS date. You will still be able to download old releases of Joomla software, if you need them, and you will still be able to search for information about problems that people may have with the version of J! you’re using.
Although self-help resources like the Joomla Forum™ exist (and, we sincerely hope they will continue for a long time to come), We know that some forum moderators take a hardline approach to questions about upgrading J! websites with responses like “your software is past it’s end-of-life; you’re at serious risk of blah-blah-blah” … striking terror into the hearts of those who dare to ask questions about their website problems. Well, if you can put up with that abuse then go for it; use the Joomla forum if you want to know whether something is important, feasible or desirable but be prepared for a scolding if your question is [obviously] a waste of time. So … you go to the Joomla forum and what do you get? More nagging.
No one is forcing you to abandon J! 4.x or any other version of J! for that matter. The only circumstances that will force you to leave J! 4.x will be (a) if your webhosting provider cannot give you the service that you need to operate your website, (b) all of the technical self-help resources disappear or (c) there is no-one available who can provide you with technical help in the event you have problems. These circumstances have never arisen in the past.
I’ve had enough of these EOS notices. How can I make them go away?
Just as the EoS notice announcing the ends of J! 2.5.28 and J! 3.10.12 could be permanently disabled, there is a similar mechanism to perform the same action in J! 4.4.x: go to System » Manage » Plugins and search for “end of support”. This should result in displaying a link to the Quick Icon - Joomla 4 End Of Support Notification plugin. Click the green tick (G) and you will never see these reminders about updating to J! 4.x again.
That’s all you have to do. No-one is forcing anyone to update from J! 4.x to J! 5. … but there may be other reasons why you may want to migrate your website to something different. As I wrote at the beginning, this article is not about whether people should update to J! 4.x but whether they must. I should also add—there are plans to release J! 6 within the next 12 to 18 months—that after 17 October 2025 the nag cycle will probably begin again. Who knows?
Hi Michael,
As you point out, nobody is being forced to abandon Joomla 4 but once a Joomla version becomes end of life, there is no guarantee that security vulnerabilities will be fixed which could potentially put your website at risk if you are running an unsupported version. Having said that, I have had clients with Joomla 1.5 websites still running fine more than a decade after Joomla 1.5 became unsupported. I still have some Joomla 3.x clients who are happy to risk staying on Joomla 3.x in the meantime. I also still see the odd Joomla 1.0.x website still happily running such as http://www.australianflag.net.au, https://26cavcommando.org.au, https://www.cdasoftware.com.au and https://www.queenslandcity.com.au - I don't have anything to do with these websites but I do wonder how difficult it would be to convince the owners of the benefits of upgrading when it appears their websites have been doing everything they need for nearly 20 years!
How refreshing ,This Article + comment by Neil makes me realise I was not going crazy after all, I thought the same but wasn't sure if I was correct / alone in thinking this way,
The panic many people have is more to do with misunderstanding than any real looming or impending catastrophic disaster,
If people kept regular backups & had more insight into what makes a websites security vulnerable then they could relax knowing that its not The Joomla version they are using but more likely user error or a setting misconfiguration to blame - which would narrow the issue down further. (if it ain't broke and all that!).