Bug: HikaShop 6.4.1 search plugins still extend deprecated JPlugin (Joomla 6 cra

-- url of the page with the problem -- : all ours
-- HikaShop version -- : 6.4.1
-- Error-message(debug-mod must be tuned on) -- : 500

Hello HikaShop team,

we run HikaShop Business 6.4.1 on a Joomla 6.1.0 site (German shop, easybay-web.com) and ran into a reproducible fatal error caused by the two search plugins shipped with the package still extending the long-deprecated JPlugin class:

/plugins/search/hikashop_products/hikashop_products.php — line 12
/plugins/search/hikashop_categories/hikashop_categories.php — line 12

Both files also use JPluginHelper and JRegistry further down (e.g. lines 19–20 of hikashop_products.php).

On Joomla 6 these legacy names are only available through the "Behaviour - Backward Compatibility 6" plugin (compat6). Due to the known Joomla core issue #46233 the behaviour plugin group is no longer guaranteed to load before the system/search plugin group, so any code path that imports search plugins crashes before compat6 has had a chance to register the class aliases.

Reference: issues.joomla.org/tracker/joomla-cms/46233

Reproduction in our environment:
- Joomla 6.1.0 Stable [Nyota], 14 April 2026
- HikaShop Business 6.4.1
- JCE Editor (latest)
- Open any article in the backend, click the "Insert/Edit Link" toolbar button.
- JCE internally calls PluginHelper::importPlugin('search'), which loads our two plugins.
- Fatal error: Class "JPlugin" not found in /plugins/search/hikashop_categories/hikashop_categories.php:12

The error vanishes immediately after replacing

class plgSearchHikashop_products extends JPlugin

with

class plgSearchHikashop_products extends \Joomla\CMS\Plugin\CMSPlugin

in both files (and the same edit for the categories plugin). For full Joomla 6 cleanliness, JPluginHelper should also become \Joomla\CMS\Plugin\PluginHelper and JRegistry should become \Joomla\Registry\Registry.

This will likely affect every customer running HikaShop on Joomla 6, and it will hit hard once Joomla 7 ships and the compat6 layer is removed for good. A small fix in your next release would prevent a lot of support tickets.

Thanks for the great product — happy to provide additional logs, a full stack trace or test on a staging copy if that helps.

Best regards,
Jan Derhake
DERHAKE IT-Services
Augsburg, Germany
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Hi,

thanks a lot for the quick turnaround and the elegant fix, your approach is cleaner than what we proposed. The inline class_alias gated by class_exists($legacy, false) removes the timing dependency on compat6 entirely without breaking J3/J4 (where switching to the namespaced parent class would have had its own autoload pitfalls). We hadn't considered that side - good call.

To answer your questions:
**Both affected sites are ours** - easybay-web.com and easybay-web.de - these are the two domains we use to sell our own Joomla software. similar stack on both: Joomla 6.1.0 Stable [Nyota] + HikaShop Business 6.4.1 + JCE.

**Full stack trace from the .com site:**
```
Class "JPlugin" not found

#0 WFLinkSearchExtension->__construct()
JROOT/components/com_jce/editor/libraries/classes/extensions/search.php:43
#1 require_once()
JROOT/plugins/search/hikashop_categories/hikashop_categories.php:12
(class plgSearchHikashop_categories extends JPlugin)
#2 Joomla\CMS\Application\CMSApplication->loadPluginFromFilesystem()
JROOT/libraries/src/Extension/ExtensionManagerTrait.php:217
#3 Joomla\CMS\Application\CMSApplication->loadExtension()
JROOT/libraries/src/Extension/ExtensionManagerTrait.php:160
#4 Joomla\CMS\Application\CMSApplication->bootPlugin()
JROOT/libraries/src/Extension/ExtensionManagerTrait.php:99
#5 Joomla\CMS\Plugin\PluginHelper::import()
JROOT/libraries/src/Plugin/PluginHelper.php:233
#6 Joomla\CMS\Plugin\PluginHelper::importPlugin()
JROOT/libraries/src/Plugin/PluginHelper.php:193
#7 JCE editor link extension
JROOT/components/com_jce/editor/extensions/search/link.php:114
```

**Trigger**: clicking the "Insert/Edit Link" toolbar button in JCE on a com_content article in the backend.
**No other caller** of PluginHelper::importPlugin('search') on this stack, no third-party extension hooks into it, no front-end render path triggers it, and the error only appears when the link picker is actually opened. Exactly the code path you reproduced.

**Why .com failed while .de still works** (FYI, in case you see follow-up reports): we believe this is a side-effect of Joomla core issue #46233 (behaviour plugin group no longer guaranteed to load before system/search plugins in J6). compat6 is enabled on both sites. On .com we recently installed an extension, which invalidated the plugin cache and reshuffled the loading order, afterwards the search plugins started parsing before compat6 had run. The .de site hasn't had a recent extension install, so its plugin order is still "lucky". Practical implication: your fix matters even for sites that work today, because the next extension install can flip the timing.

**A note on our customer history**: my own account here (Jan Derhake / DERHAKE IT-Services) is fairly new, but my father Karl-Heinz Derhake has been a HikaShop customer for many years through his company EasyBay-Web Ltd., one of the brands under which we both develop Joomla extensions. He has been running HikaShop on production sites for the better part of a decade and has consistently been very happy with both the product and your support. That long, positive history is a large part of why we are glad to invest the time on reports and tests like this one — we like helping people who build software the way you do. If you could link my account on your side to the existing EasyBay-Web Ltd. / Karl-Heinz Derhake customer record, that would be appreciated; we are operating as one team across both domains.

Updated HikaShop now and can confirm the patch resolves it on our end.

Thanks again for the fast turnaround — very much appreciated.

Best regards,
Jan Derhake
DERHAKE IT-Services