After JUpdate my content position is gone from list - joomla

Question

I used JUpdate to update a joomla 1.5.23 site to 2.5

when i tried to re-link the content area to the article i cant find the position from my main content area in the menu anymore.

the left sidebar is still there and also the right one.

Can anyone shine some light on this? i already tried all the positions from the template twice but i cant seem to find it?

--- template details ---

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE install PUBLIC "-//Joomla! 1.6//DTD template 1.0//EN" "http://www.joomla.org/xml/dtd/1.6/template-install.dtd">
<extension version="2.5" type="template" client="site" >
    <name></name>
    <version>1.0.0</version>
    <creationDate>07/2009</creationDate>
    <author>SiteGround</author>
    <authorEmail></authorEmail>
    <authorUrl></authorUrl>
    <copyright></copyright>
    <license>GNU/GPL</license>
    <description>TEMPLATE_DESCRIPTION</description>
    <files>
        <filename>index.php</filename>
        <filename>templateDetails.xml</filename>
        <filename>template_thumbnail.png</filename>
        <filename>templates.php</filename>
        <filename>template_preview.png</filename>
        <filename>error.php</filename>

        <folder>css</folder>
        <folder>images</folder>

    </files>
    <positions>
        <position>user4</position>            
        <position>user3</position>            
        <position>breadcrumb</position>            
        <position>user2</position>            
        <position>left</position>                  
        <position>right</position>            
        <position>debug</position>       
    </positions>
    <languages>
        <language tag="en-GB">en-GB.tpl_siteground-j15-80.ini</language>
    </languages>
    <administration>
        <languages folder="admin">
            <language tag="en-GB">en-GB.tpl_siteground-j15-80.ini</language>
        </languages>
    </administration>
</extension>

Answer 1

I'm not too sure why you used JUpdate to update to 2.5. I personally don't always trust 3rd party extensions to update the CMS as it sometimes causes problems. What you should do is (providing you have a backup of your old 1.6 site):

1. Upgrade to 1.6.6 by downloading the patch and extracting it via FTP on to the root of your site
2. IN the Joomla Backend, go to Extensions >> Extension Manager >> Find Updates
3. If you can't find any updates, then go to Options and select the Long Term Release. Once saved, Purge Cache and try to find updates again.

Update:

change this:

<?php if($this->params->get('showComponent')) : ?> 
    <jdoc:include type="component" /> 
<?php endif; ?>

to this:

<jdoc:include type="component" /> 

So basically remove the PHP that is wrapped around