Geeklog Forums

This issue recurs every few weeks and completely breaks my ability to configure the site. I've reinstalled GL three times, and every time I begin a little customization, it breaks. Please help. I'm feeling like an incredible noob.

Once this breakage happens, all the links on configuration.php point to configuration.php. "Blocks," "Theme," "Users and Submissions," *all* of them become visited links and point to the same page.

I'd expect this if I were modifying the source or radically altering layouts, but it's not a great amount of customization; tonight I moved three blocks from left to right. I used to think third party themes were doing this, but I haven't touched a theme tonight. I was able to make several changes before this, including post-install stuff like proper file permissions, changing admin passwd. Then I had no problem adding some topics and stories.

Tonight I noticed that immediately before the break, my security token expired and required me to log back into the UI. It seems likely that this was the case last time, but I can't be certain.

Tonight I was painfully cautious and made a backup of the entire GL document and backend directories and a database dump after each few changes.The worst part is, this stays broken after completely wiping and restoring:

I can still see changes in the UI with different revisions of my backups--so I know they're from earlier versions of my efforts--but once the issue surfaces, I can only reinstall to fix it. I even logged out, rebooted my client PC, restarted MySQL, and deleted and recreated the database, and it still didn't help.

Is there a known issue with running GL on Ubuntu server or anything? I obviously haven't tried *everything*, or it'd be fixed. But I'm out of ideas. I really like the GL UI, but I'm being pressured to use something else and want to fix this ASAP.


This happened with GL versions ~1.6, 1.71rc1, and tonight, 1.71sr1.

Not sure I understand your problem. The Configuration makes heavy use of JavaScript. As such, all the links have always pointed to just configuration.php (actually, configuration.php# if you look closely). So this is normal.

Are you saying that they stop working once you've clicked on a link? Or are they not working in the first place? Make sure you have JavaScript enabled and you should be fine.

If that doesn't explain what you're seeing, please try explaining it again in other words.

bye, Dirk

Which browser do you use? Any fancy settings?

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Not really. I've customized Firefox a bit, but the most drastic change is CoolIris. Chrome is nearly default out of the box, and I.E. has few changes as well. Same result on two separate client workstations--one XP box, one fairly new Win7 box--although I only have Chrome on XP. This is at work where I don't have a Linux workstation to test with. Also, my Win7 doesn't have CoolIris.


Sorry, I should've been more clear. Yes, I know the links all point to configuration.php#, but the source code on the page shows--I'm not near it and don't know JavaScript, so I'll have to paraphrase--something like this:

The numeric identifier in each of those links decides whether I'm about to edit the blocks or select a new theme. Once this breaks, it's always the same, and I can't get to blocks anymore. nor stories, nor themes, nor anything else but the default page you see when you hit the configuration link from say, admin home. It's the page with the main config. I click all the other links and get ONLY that page.

If these were all separate HTML pages, I'd suspect that symlinks to the main page had replaced all the others, if that helps you visualize what I'm seeing

Since you mentioned JavaScript, I'll download the latest Java and see if that helps.

Don't bother. Java and JavaScript are two different languages. Geeklog only uses JavaScript (in some places, like the Configuration). It does not use Java.

bye, Dirk

It's more like:

So that means that when you click on the link "Theme", it would execute the JavaScript function open_subgroup("Core","2" )

It's still not clear to me: Does this never work? Or does it work for a time and then suddenly stops working?

In the first case, it would make it sound like you have JavaScript disabled in your browser (or you're behind a proxy or firewall that filters JavaScript). In the latter case - no idea, really.

Many browsers have an "Error Console" or something similar (in Firefox: Tools > Error Console). Does anything show up there when that happens?

bye, Dirk

Heh. I thought, "hope I don't have to admit I don't know the difference; maybe JS is based on Java and might benefit from an update." I should stick to bash and ksh scripting.


Yeah, that sounds right. Sorry; made my last post from elsewhere. And thanks. I learned a little JS today.


It works for awhile and then stops. No matter which link, I get the main config page. Click Blocks, get the page where I can update the URLs, slogan, meta description, all of that. I click Images or Stories, or Miscellaneous, it's all the same. I did notice this time that my security token expired immediately before the break. I logged back in, and then I couldn't reach the other pages

Is it tied to the session? I've restarted the browser and rebooted the client workstation.
Is it the config files? I've completely removed and restored from backup. Same with the database. And three different Geeklog releases.
I was still ready to blame themes, but I didn't change it once this time.
Is it a goofy client misconfig? I've got a two-year-old XP box and a four-week-old Win7 box seeing the same thing, and multiple browsers on each box.

It's just weird. I'll check the error console and report back. If I don't find anything conclusive I might do a reinstall and THEN watch the error consoles on separate machines.

Devil's advocate: I used Firefox to admin the UI and tracked the progress in I.E. to view the UI for anonymous clients. Is it possible that Geeklog or Apache confused the two sessions from the same PC? It still wouldn't explain how restoring the database didn't fix it.

Thank you again for listening.

All right, so here it is. Please be assured I haven't manually altered a single config file. How do I fix it?
I found "open_subgroup" in javascript/configmanager.js, which is called in the HTML source a few lines before the first instance of onclick=open_subgroup.

Interestingly, I got ten warnings loading this forum page as well as five searching on Google a few minutes ago. In case they're relevant, here are a few:

Typing anything into Google yields fourteen more warnings.

from javascript/configmanager.js:

So Firefox's error console shows.

Google Chrome shows the very similar

I don't speak JavaScript, but I've coded plenty of bash and ksh, and a touch of Pearl. It *looks* like it should be working. The HTML source references javascript/configmanager.js, which contains "open_subgroup."

It can't be something cached on the client, because this is the first time I've hit the page in Google Chrome since the most recent reinstall. I also checked from another PC in a different department, and the same issue is happening.

I'm stumped. Any ideas?
:banghead:

Not sure how that JavaScript function could disappear just like that ...

Are you using a custom theme or the standard Professional theme? And if it's a custom theme, did you derive it from the (current) Professional or did you download it from somewhere else?

Just a shot in the dark, really. I'm wondering if you're flip-flopping between two themes (that could happen when the security token expires; there's also a bug with theme changes in the configuration somewhere that we haven't tracked down yet). So maybe one theme isn't loading the JavaScript code or something like that ...

bye, Dirk

No alternate theme. I thought before that a third party theme was breaking things. But this time I didn't even touch the theme, and nothing's in the GL directories except what the install doc directs, save a few PNGs for topic images.

I'll reinstall and document every change I make, watching the error console. I'll come back and report what I find.

I was doing this on the command line each time I did something new. It copied the directories and a database export and put them into a timestamped directory:The above grabs DocRoot (admin/ *.php, javascript/, et cetera) and the backend directory (db-config, logs...), and then a database dump.

What else I should I be archiving? I must've missed something with the above, or restoring from a backup would fix it, right?

Thank you for keeping with me on this.