FAQ: joomla upload ERROR: Could not find a Joomla! XML setup file in the package Topic is solved

[microwave]

Hi - I'm new to Joomla, like the look of it very much, but hit a problem which I couldn't find in the existing FAQs.

To start, thought I'd take a walk through the tutorial at help.joomla.org/content/view/775/125 and try uploading the hello_world module. Copied the files off screen, zipped them up and bang! got the above error.

Search on Google only suggests checking the file has not been zipped twice, but that wasn't the problem.

Dug into the source until I got to components/com_installer/installer.class.php, and note that function
isPackageFile( $p_file ) returns false if the file isn't available, or if there is any problem parsing it!!!

Sorry I'm not a xml expert, and eventually noted that the tag won't match a closing tag
(on linux at any rate). In fact the opening tag on the example has been capitalised by the help balloon (as the author in fact points out on a previous page).

So if you get this error, check your .xml file extremely carefully.

Would also like to suggest that the error message says "could not find or parse a Joomla! XML setup file".
It might save other newcomers several hours of digging.

Looking forward to exploring joomla more.