need help installing this. I have joomla 1.5, community builder.

This seems like a directory permissions issue. In the admin area, can you go to Help->System Info page and click on "Directory Permissions" tab. Check that all directories are green and writable. If not, fix that. If so, have you installed other extensions successfully recently?

Finally, try switching FTP mode in the Site->Global Configuration, "Server" tab. If it's enabled, disable it and try to install JFBConnect. If it's disabled, enable it and enter your FTP credentials and try installing that way.

Let us know what happens and we'll get you going from there.

Sorry for the over-the-head explanation.

Unfortunately, yes, this is something you'll need to correct on your server. You'll want to ensure that group permissions are set to writeable on the directories of your site. The best option, if available, is to contact your hosting company and to ask them to change the ownership and/or permissions for the files on your site and explain that Joomla cannot write to some directories. They should be able to figure out how to fix things.

If not, it can be done manually using your web hosting administration area. Using a file navigation tool, the following is usually shown next to folders and files:
Own Grp All
rwx rwx rwx

Where:
r = Read permissions
w = write permissions
x = execute permissions

Own = The first group of rwx is for the "Owner" of the files, usually the server user who wrote them in the first place
Grp = Group. This is a group of people who have the set permissions
All = Everyone

I'm sure this isn't helping with confusion, but it's an unfortunate necessity to explain. What the directories and files on your site should look like is:
rwx rwx r-x
The last w is missing to not allow everyone (hackers) to modify your files.

Please let us know if we can help more, but every host and configuration is different, so we can't be too specific to your needs as I don't know exactly how you're setup.

No problem helping you out. That's what a support subscription gets for you

Let's go step by step on how to answer. First, they want to know who should own the files. Since Apache (your webserver) is serving up and executing the PHP scripts, you want it to at least be in the group that owns the files. To figure out what user Apache is running as, do the following:
* Go to Help->System Info and the "PHP Information" tab
* Look for "apache2handler"
* In that section, find "User/Group" and jot down the information. Many times it's apache/apache. The 2nd word may actually be a number: apache(48)/48. Use this first value to tell them who the owner of your files should be. Tell them to update your whole Joomla directory (/var/www/vhosts/myservicematters.org/httpdocs/joomla/) to be owned by this user.

Then, you should tell them to do a "chmod u+w" to the whole Joomla directory. This enables the owner (as defined above) to write to your structure, which in this case is PHP. This will not affect other permissions (read or execute) or allow for open access to unscrupulous individuals since all write privelages should not be there already.

Certainly, let us know what they come back with and if you have more questions.

[Edit by admin: Changed some language to ensure that the user owns the files, instead of saying the group. The group is slightly more insecure and not the best recommended solution]

Yes, definitely try to install it again. While we give advice here, I'd always defer to your service provider for their technical expertise as what we say here is the 'common' answer, but they can see everything about your system and know about their servers.

While what we recommended isn't a security risk, doing it improperly is. They are trying to protect you from this.

Description of their fix:
By enabling FTP mode, it means that the installer is uploading the file as a different user (your FTP user vs the user that's running Apache). This user likely has permission to write to the directories in your Joomla installation, even though Joomla will still say they are unwritable. We don't recommend this first as there can still be issues later on as the component may not be able to write or create files if necessary, however, JFBConnect does not need this ability. So, in short, hopefully you're good to go!

Let us know if there's anything else we can help with!

If you'd be ok with it, I'd ask that you message us a super administrator account so we can investigate further. This will help get you setup quicker than what you've experienced so far. When you message us, please send the API & Secret key for your FB application so that we can get that set up for you after we diagnose the current error your describing.

If you're uncomfortable with giving us an account (completely understandable), let us know and we can try to help you here further.

Thanks!