Joomla 3.3 & CiviCRM 4.4.4 / JRegistry fatal PHP error during cron run

After upgrading to Joomla 3.3, I now receive the following error from PHP when attempting to run cron jobs via the CLI:

"PHP Fatal error: Class 'JRegistry' not found in <site root>/libraries/joomla/factory.php"

This same error occurs when running it using <mysite>/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/bin/cron.php?name=someuser&pass=somepass&key=somekey .

The issue has been resolved by adding a few lines to /administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/CRM/Utils/System/Joomla.php .

Towards the bottom of this file is a function called 'loadJoomlaBootstrap' where you will find this block of code:

// Get the framework.
if (file_exists($joomlaBase . '/libraries/import.legacy.php'))

{ require $joomlaBase . '/libraries/import.legacy.php'; }

Add another block underneath that to include <root>/libraries/cms.php from the Joomla framework:

if (file_exists($joomlaBase . '/libraries/cms.php'))

{ require $joomlaBase . '/libraries/cms.php'; }

This is the file that contains pointers from the old legacy classes that Civi uses, to the new classes used by J3.3. This is a hack, and Civi really needs to be updated to use the new classes, but this works for now - in the medium term. Those legacy pointers will likely get removed at some point.

I should also note that I have personally tested this fix only on 4.4.5, though it would likely solve it on 4.4.4 as well.

There's a discussion on this at http://forum.civicrm.org/index.php/topic,32620.msg139188.html .