Stefan Helander

Joomla error “Table jf_content doesn’t exist” after migration from Joomla 2.5 to 3.4

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I was working on a migration project on site running Joomla 2.5, moving it over to Joomla 3.4. On some pages I received an error screen with SQL errors saying, among other things, “Table jf_content doesn’t exist”.

I found out that the common factor for the pages with errors was that they used the include_content_item plugin. I tried downloading the latest version of the plugin, which was 3.0.12 released in June 2014 supporting up to Joomla 3.3. However I was now running Joomla 3.4 and this didn’t solve my problem.

So I had to start looking for an alternative and found the Articles Anywhere extension which gave me similar functionality. After the include_content_item plugin was uninstalled and replaced by Articles Anywhere my problem was solved.

Stefan Helander

Joomla com_weblinks not working after upgrade from Joomla 2.5 to 3.4

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After upgrading my Joomla 2.5 site to Joomla 3.4 the com_weblinks stopped working. I got error messages like these:

Notice: Trying to get property of non-object in /var/www/SOMESITE/components/com_weblinks/models/category.php on line 87 Warning: Creating default object from empty value in /var/www/SOMESITE/components/com_weblinks/models/category.php on line 88 Notice: Undefined property: stdClass::$url in /var/www/clients/client1/web2/web/webhotel24-2/modules/mod_weblinks/helper.php on line 92
Notice: Undefined property: stdClass::$title in /var/www/SOMESITE/modules/mod_weblinks/tmpl/default.php on line 21 Notice: Undefined property: stdClass::$description in /var/www/SOMESITE/modules/mod_weblinks/tmpl/default.php on line 38

As of Joomla 3.4 the com_weblinks is no longer a core part of the Joomla distribution. Instead it is found in the Joomla Extensions Directory (JED). To try to solve the problem I downloaded the latest com_weblinks from JED and tried to install it in my Joomla 3.4 site. This failed with an SQL error however

After trying to manually delete the weblinks package originating from Joomla 2.5 from the site (by deleting the folders com_weblinks folders and renaming the table ending with the name “_weblinks”) I ended up in a kind of deadlock situation where I wasn’t able to install the new weblinks from Joomla Extensions directory either. It didn’t install due to SQL errors.

The problem with upgrading a weblinks package that has been present during a Joomla 2.5.28 -> Joomla 3.4.0 problems are being adressed here. However, just downloading the suggested pkg_weblinks341 didn’t solve the problem for me either. Trying to install it in my Joomla 3.4 site gave SQL errors about columns images and version already existing in the table ending with the name “_weblinks”. Just deleting the table “_weblinks” gave another error about the table “_weblinks” not exisiting.

This is how I solved it.

Warning! 1) The below solution will have the drawback of deleting all your existing weblinks, but it will get the extension up and running with Joomla 3.4 and 2) make backup of your site and database before you begin!

So my solution was:

  • Using phpMyAdmin I made a copy of the table with the name ending with “_weblinks” to a name ending with “_weblinks_OLDJ25” (just to have an easily accessible backup of the table)
  • Using phpMyAdmin I deleted the columns images and version from the table “_weblinks”
  • I downloaded pkg_weblinks341 and now it was possible to install it using the normal Joomla extension install
Stefan Helander

Joomla! 1.5 menu items not visible

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I was moving a Joomla! 1.5 site to a new hosting server. The site had been running on PHP 5.2 on the prevoius server but on the new host only PHP 5.6 or later was available. Joomla! was version 1.5.14.

After installing the site on the new server, no menu items were visible, not in backend, nor in frontend. I checked the database tables and the menu items were present in the database, they just didn’t show up in Joomla!.

The solution was simply to upgrade Joomla! to the latest verion, 1.5.26, which is compatible with PHP 5.6 (something that I would have done anyway as the next step).

Joomla! 1.5 upates can be downloaded here.

Stefan Helander

Error 404 when trying to password protect administrator folder in Joomla using Apache htaccess

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When protecting the administrator folder in Joomla using Apache htaccess to increase the security of the website (which by the way is a good thing to do to prevent too interested individuals to peek where they shouldn’t), you might get an error 404 message when trying to access administrator and the expected password prompt never appears.

The cause can be that the server is configured to allow user defined error pages stored in for example the error folder. If some of the error files are missing the above mentioned problem can occur. Make sure you have the correct folder name and file names for your error files.

This particular problem occured for me when I moved a Joomla site from one hosting provider to another and by mistake also replaced the error folder with the one from the old hosting provider which had a completely different file name structure for the error message files.

Stefan Helander

VirtueMart not displaying in Components menu after install [solved]

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After installing VirtueMart on a Joomla 2.5 site, it should occur in the Components menu in the Joomla! backend. In my case, it didn’t show up.

The problem can be caused by the Xmap – Virtuemart plugin not being enabled.

Solution: 

Go to the Extensions menu and then select Plug-in Manager.
In the filter box, type "xmap" and press enter.
In the list displaying, check if the Xmap – Virtuemart plugin is disabled (status icon is red).
Then click the status icon for Xmap – Virtuemart so it turns green. Now VirtueMart should be availible in the Components menu.

 

Enabled VirtueMart Xmap plugin
Stefan Helander

Joomla multi language problem when trying to change menu item from ‘All’ to a specific language

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When setting up a Joomla site for multilanguage you need to set a default menu item for each language. However, sometimes it is not possible to change a default menu item currently set to language "All". The error message displayed is: 

"Warning Save failed with the following error: The Language parameter for this menu item must be set to 'All'. At least one Default menu item must have Language set to All, even if the site is multilingual."

A solution is to do the following:

  1. Select the menu item by checking the checkbox for it to the left in the menu items list.
  2. Then scroll down to the batch change item (found under the list of menu items).  
  3. In the drop down list "Select language" you select the language you wish to set the menu item to.
  4. In the drop down list "Select Menu or parent for Move/Copy", select the menu where item currently is located in.
  5. Select the Move radio button
  6. Click Proceed.

Problem solved!

 

Stefan Helander

[Solved] Joomla JCE editor displays as plg_editor_jce in global settings

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Selection lists in the toolbar might also display things like "advanced.h1" and so on.

The cause of the problem seems to be translation files for the JCE editor of an older version are read only which prevented them from being updated to the newer version. 

Solution: 

  1. Uninstall JCE editor. Go to the menu Extensions -> Extension manager -> Manage. Filter the extensions by entering "JCE" in the filer field. About three lines will be filtered out ("Editor – JCE", "JCE editor" and "Quick Icon – JCE File Browser"). Select all three and click the Uninstall button. 
  2. Using FTP access, go to the language folder and into the folder of each language you have installed in the system, like sv-SE for Swedish for example. Delete the file sv-SE.com_jce.xml in each folder (sv-SE is corresponding to the language folder you are working in so unless you are using Swedish, your filename will not begin with sv-SE but something else).
  3. Now go to the administrator/language folder and into the folder of each language you have installed. Delete all files beginning with sv-SE.com_jce* (and again, unless you are dealing with Swedish, your filename will not begin with sv-SE but something else).
  4. Go to Extensions and reinstall JCE.

In the global settings, you will now find "Editor – JCE" instead of "plg_editor_jce".

 

Stefan Helander

Create custom blog category layout in Joomla 1.5

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If you need to customize the blog category layout in Joomla 1.5 you do like this: 

  1. Create the following subfolders to your template directory: 
    mkdir -p templates/yourtemplate/html/com_content/category
  2. Copy blog.php and blog_item.php from Joomla core:
    cp -p components/com_content/view/category/tmpl/blog.php templates/yourtemplate/html/com_content/category
    cp -p components/com_content/view/category/tmpl/blog.php templates/yourtemplate/html/com_content/category
  3. Customize blog.php and blog_item.php in the components/com_content/view/category/tmpl/blog.php templates/yourtemplate/html/com_content/category folder to your needs. These modified files will override the ones in the Joomla core if they exists.

 

Stefan Helander

Joomla 2.5 – suddenly internal links contain Smart%20Search [solution]

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In a Joomla 2.5 installation, SEF URLs enabled and URL rewrite using .htaccess enabled I suddenly got internal menu links with URL:s containing Smart%20Search, like:

http://www.example.com/some-menu-item/Smart%20Search/some-article

The link itself does not work, ending up on an error page. I have no explanation why this occurs.

The solution is to go to Menu -> Menus, then select all menus and then click the Rebuild button