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#9753 Menu Manager > Menu Item Manager Disappeared!

Posted in ‘Admin Tools for Joomla! 4 & 5’
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Environment Information

Joomla! version
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PHP version
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Admin Tools version
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Latest post by nicholas on Thursday, 03 February 2011 09:36 CST

Wednesday, 02 February 2011 09:32 CST

Randy Prue
This is in the back end of the site that I recently updated to 1.5.22 and then installed Admin Tools Pro. I have used the firewall, the DB prefix change, htaccess maker, fix permissions, and the secret word administrator?word plus user/pass on admin folder. I removed joomla from output, got rid of the 62 admin ID.

This is the site where now the backup (jpa from Akeeba Backup) is exactly twice the size of what it was.

In the back end, I no longer have access under Menus > Menu Manager > Menu Item Manager. Instead of the 7 published menus, my list is empty.

My choices now are to restore to the date of the last backup before I implemented the changes (at least this is a backup that is half the size of the current backups). These half-size backups are my benchmark.

At least I can work through the site again (install Admin Tools, configure, implement), make the changes slowly, test after each one, find out what is causing the site to double in size, and what causes my menus to disappear from the back end.

Wednesday, 02 February 2011 11:30 CST

nicholas
Regarding the change of size, I can only think that you are somehow backing up an old backup.

The menu manager issue is something that has never been reported before and I can not reproduce. Do you see the menu items on your site's front-end?

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Wednesday, 02 February 2011 12:08 CST

Randy Prue
I agree with you, Nicholas, that it seems that there is somehow a duplicate of the entire site in there somewhere, but the backup directories are empty. I will go have another look at that.

I do not want to post the site URL here but if you want to have a look, I can send you the URL and I can set up a user/pass for you.

In the front end, the menus work perfectly (and yes, visible).

Wednesday, 02 February 2011 12:12 CST

nicholas
Please send me the URL and Super Administrator login details to your site by means of a direct Personal Message. I am user "nicholas". This will allow me to debug this issue directly on your server.

VERY IMPORTANT: Please include a link back to this post, otherwise it's impossible for me to know why you're sending me the PM.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Thursday, 03 February 2011 05:24 CST

nicholas
This problem has nothing to do with Admin Tools. You weren't able to access the menu items before. You have created a menu called "Pill Menu" with an id of "Pill Menu". Major problem: As Joomla! warned you when you were creating the menu item, the id should only contain lowercase alphanumeric characters. Why? Because Joomla! is now trying to display menu items having a menutype of "Pill-Menu" whereas all the items in the database have a menutype of "Pill Menu". Joomla! internally translated the space to a dash.

In order to fix that, go to your database using phpMyAdmin, edit the (yourprefix)_menu table, find all items which have a menutype of "Pill Menu" and change that to read "Pill-Menu" (with a dash).

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Thursday, 03 February 2011 06:26 CST

Randy Prue
Thank you. I sent you a message about some of this.

Adding the dash in the menutype field causes the menu entries to appear in the back end, but they also disappear in the front end.

The table menu_types contains "Pill Menu". Does this also need to be changed?

I added a dash in menu_types (to Pill Menu) and that did not make the menu items reappear in the front end, so I put it all back for now. The front end has to load (more important than loading the back end).

During off hours (this site gets traffic during our time zone, day time), I can set the menu I have to change to add the dash, make the changes, set it back, until I have a solution to fix it permanently.

Maybe I can create a new replacement mainmenu module with a proper name. Assign all the menus to that, let it load in the front end, and then disable this one with the problems.

Thursday, 03 February 2011 06:50 CST

nicholas
Exactly! What you described is the indicated course of action.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Thursday, 03 February 2011 07:02 CST

Randy Prue
Thanks again, Nicholas. Do you mean that I should make a new replacement menu?

Or make the changes in both tables (which still does not make the menus show up in the front end, only in the back end).

Hmmm... actually there is a module called "topmenu" (lower case, no space, as you recommend). If I turn it off, the menu disappears, so this seems to be the module that is creating the menu.

There is no module for "Pill Menu" (even though this shows up in the tables).
Edited by Randy Prue on 2011-02-03 07:08 CST

Thursday, 03 February 2011 07:03 CST

nicholas
Making the changes in both tables should be adequate.

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Thursday, 03 February 2011 07:09 CST

Randy Prue
Thanks. Unfortunately, there seems to be a missing step or something... as adding the dash to menutype in menu_types does not cause the menu entries to reappear in the front end.

Thursday, 03 February 2011 08:14 CST

Randy Prue
There is a table called modules and it has topmenu with menutype set to Pill Menu. I think that adding the dash in there is what will make it appear in the front end.

Thursday, 03 February 2011 08:36 CST

Randy Prue
Well, I made the change (add the dash) in the 3 tables:

menu
menutypes
modules

All menu entries now appear in the front end and in the back end.

Scary to mess with the dB tables, but for an old phart this is as exciting as a ski vacation.

Thursday, 03 February 2011 08:49 CST

nicholas
Sorry for the late reply, it was lunch time here :) As you figured out, you really had to change all database tables in order for the change to work. Well, at lest you now know that when creating menu items you shouldn't be using menutypes with spaces. Don't worry, it's a mistake we've all made. IMHO, Joomla! should "protect" you and not let you do something which will obviously break it, but that's a whole different story I guess...

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Thursday, 03 February 2011 09:28 CST

Randy Prue
Thanks, Nicholas. I just figured out (googled it) that Athens is UTC +2.

Yes, I do not recall (18 months ago when I created that site) being warned about menutype criteria. I am also surprised that Joomla did not add dashes or refuse to accept the entry.

Like you say, now I know.

And I just found and purchased your support package, worth every cent. This had nothing to do with your product, and I greatly appreciate your assistance.

Thursday, 03 February 2011 09:36 CST

nicholas
Thank you :)

Nicholas K. Dionysopoulos

Lead Developer and Director

🇬🇷Greek: native 🇬🇧English: excellent 🇫🇷French: basic • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Athens
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

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