Author Topic: Joomla/Civicrm admin menu crash (Read 4843 times)

lajes · February 03, 2015, 12:26:02 pm

Not quite sure where to start, so I'll start here.

I have a Joomla installation (3.3.6), along with CiviCRM (v4.5.5). Everything was running fine until I realized that one of my menu entries was pointing to the wrong CiviCRM option. When I went to change the menu entry, Joomla basically 'crashed'. The display page is a non-GUI/ascii form version of the menu edit page, there are no buttons, no tabs, no menus, no color, nothing. I tried turning on PHP debug, even that's missing from the display. I looked at the page source, and from what I can tell, everything's there that should be, it just doesn't display the page properly.

I'm not sure if this is a Joomla or CiviCRM problem. The problem occurs during the following sequence:
go to Menu Manager > Main Menu
click on New Menu
enter menu title: 'Test"
click on the 'Menu Item Type' select button
scroll down to CiviCRM, select 'Profile View Page'
as soon as you've click on the option, the page crashes.

I did startup Firebug, it shows ""ReferenceError: Joomla is not defined" but so far I haven't been able to figure out why it thinks that.

Not all the CiviCRM menu options crash, but the majority of them do.

Has anyone encountered this before? Do anyone have any ideas?

lcdweb · February 03, 2015, 01:04:39 pm

I ran a test on a clean dev site, and I couldn't reproduce.
Since the issue with the Joomla menu manager, I'm pretty sure it's a Joomla issue. Sounds like something's going on with your install of Joomla.

you may want to do a reinstall of Joomla core. it may also be caused by a module or plugin that is displaying on the admin side and messing things up. if you have any 3rd party admin menu modules, try disabling them and trying again. I've seen some that add javascript to the page and can throw things off.

lajes · February 03, 2015, 03:29:16 pm

Thanks for the followup. I actually have the problem on 2 sites (dev & prod). While they're identical in content, structure and extensions, they were both built from the ground up independently, plus they reside on 2 completely different servers. I actually discovered the problem while walking the production site in preparation for going live, when I checked the development site, I discovered it had the same problem.

Not sure I understand you comment: "if you have any 3rd party admin menu modules". I have a variety of 3rd party extensions, some with backend interfaces (ie AkeebaBackup, etc), but I haven't installed anything that's changed the backend administrative interface itself beyond the stock system.

As for your suggestion that it might be Joomla, I'd posted a similar question over there as well. I also ran thru trying to create menus for a variety of other options and had no problem, just with civicrm.

I'll try overlaying the stock Joomla system again and see if that makes any difference. If you have any other suggestions, I'd love to hear them as I'm completely stumped at this point and really not looking forward to rebuilding everything yet again. Thanks!

lcdweb · February 04, 2015, 03:28:22 am

if the two sites have identical configuration, it would make sense that they both have the same issue. to rule out a "core" civicrm/joomla issue, you would want to spin up a clean install of joomla + civi and try to reproduce.

the two types of extensions I was suggesting you look for both have potential impact on the admin user interface --
plugins, particularly system plugins, may run code at any point in your use of the system. so you may have a system plugin that is affecting the rendering of the page or injecting javascript into the page and messing things up. an admin menu module affects the main menu, thus injecting code into the page as well -- thus it also is a possible culprit.

I would not rebuild the site from scratch. I would begin by disabling third part admin modules and system plugins, one at a time, to see if one of them is causing the conflict. since you have a dev site where you can reproduce the issue, you'll obviously want to do it there. you can backup the extensions table in your joomla DB beforehand, if desired, so that you can easily restore the extension settings once you've identified the culprit.

note -- I'm not saying this is definitely the issue. but that's where I would start if I was debugging.

lajes · February 05, 2015, 10:48:44 am

Sorry for the delayed response, I was expecting the forum to email me of any updates...

I'll give your suggestions a shot and see what happens and let you know.

Thanks much.

lajes · March 05, 2015, 02:20:58 pm

Ok, I've tried a variety of processes and they all ended in the same result, failure.

a) I took an existing built up system and started disabling extensions one by one until I was left with just Joomla, its core functions, a template and CiviCRM. I tried to create a menu link to my CiviCRM membership contribution page and the system bombs. (meaning all the Joomla GUI aspects have disappeared and I ended up with a straight ascii form of the new menu screen (see attachment)).

b) I started a fresh build - Joomla, a template, some content and CiviCRM (unconfigured). I then added each of my extensions until everything was installed. Attempted to create a menu link to a CiviCRM Contribution page. Everything was fine. I then did a complete configuration of CiviCRM - following the CiviCRM checklist and then creating a membership type set followed by a membership price set. I then created a membership profile based upon on of the existing profiles. I then created a membership contribution page. I did a preview and everything looked fine. So I then tried to create a Joomla menu entry for the CiviCRM membership page and it bombs. (meaning all the Joomla GUI aspects have disappeared and I ended up with a straight ascii form of the menu screen (see attachment)).

I've tried building and rebuilding the system in a variety of ways, during the build up, everything looks fine until I actually finish configuring CiviCRM and then try to create a menu link to it.

I tried Joomla's debug, nothing.
I've looked at the server logs, empty.
I've tried Firefox's Firebug, nothing.

From what I can tell, nothing else in the setup is having a problem.

I'm at my wits end. Does anyone have ANY ideas as to how to figure out what's going on? What am I missing?

Thanks.

lajes · March 06, 2015, 03:03:24 pm

Ok, I've taken a different approach to trying to figure out what's going on and got a little more detail finally.

I've installed a brand new instance of Joomla3.4 and the only 'extension' I added was CiviCRM v4.5.8. I configured CiviCRM the way I've configured all my other instances: I created a membership type set, membership pricing set, a user profile, a dummy payment processor. I then created a new membership contribution page. After that I went back to Joomla to create a menu link to Contribution Page. I then went to the front page, clicked on the appropriate menu link and got the following error:

"The requested page can't be found." followed by the unformatted following error:

0 <div id="crm-container" class="crm-container" lang="en" xml:lang="en"> <style type="text/css" media="screen">@import url(/tst/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/css/civicrm.css);</style> <div class="messages status no-popup"> <div class="icon red-icon alert-icon"></div> <span class="status-fatal">Sorry but we are not able to provide this at the moment.</span> <div class="crm-section crm-error-message">We can't load the requested web page. This page requires cookies to be enabled in your browser settings. Please check this setting and enable cookies (if they are not enabled). Then try again. If this error persists, contact the site adminstrator for assistance.<br /><br />Site Administrators: This error may indicate that users are accessing this page using a domain or URL other than the configured Base URL. EXAMPLE: Base URL is http://example.org, but some users are accessing the page via http://www.example.org or a domain alias like http://myotherexample.org.<br /><br />Error type: Could not find a valid session key.</div> <p><a href="http://mytestsite.com/tst/" title="Main Menu">Return to home page.</a></p> </div> </div> <script language="JavaScript"> function toggle( element ) { var className = element.className; if ( className == 'crm-accordion-wrapper collapsed crm-fatal-error-details-block') { element.className = 'crm-accordion-wrapper crm-fatal-error-details-block'; } else { element.className = 'crm-accordion-wrapper collapsed crm-fatal-error-details-block'; } } </script>

Contrary to the error message, my cookies are enabled.

This particular instance has nothing but the core Joomla setup and the core CiviCRM, no other extensions,plugins,template - nothing.

In looking at the error message itself, it looks like the error is coming from CiviCRM rather than Joomla. Can anyone offer any suggestions as to how to troubleshoot/solve this?

lcdweb · March 06, 2015, 04:56:19 pm

The cookie error is often caused by mismatched urls.

CiviCRM has two config files in Joomla:
administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm.settings.php
components/com_civicrm/civicrm.settings.php

within both files there is a constant defined for the site url. they are slightly different -- the admin constant includes the /administrator/ path.

if you access your site and login using an alternate url from what is stored in that config file, it can cause problems. this is because the cookie is very site specific, and though CiviCRM may load and operate under the url you used to access the site, it will at some point inevitably "jump" to the url defined in the settings file. at that point, your session info is lost.

the discrepancy is most often the result of accessing the site via the www or non-www form of the url. for example, if your settings file has stored the non-www form, and you login using the www form, you'll get the session/cookie error at some point.

the best way to fix this is to force one or the other form of the url via an .htaccess file in your web root. if you're not comfortable messing around with htaccess files on your own, try installing the AdminTools extension. in the htaccess creator there is an option to force one or the other form of the url.

try doing that and see if it improves things.

lajes · March 06, 2015, 05:22:53 pm

Ok,

Both the admin and main civicrm.settings.php are identical except for the administrator reference as you indicated. They're both using the domain form http://mytestsys.com/tst (rather than www.mytestsys.com).

I also checked and I currently don't have a .htaccess defined in either my site's root or this instance's root.

Now, with that said, I decided to login to my shell account and ran a find there - I found several .htaccess' located with the civicrm directories:

./tst/media/civicrm/ConfigAndLog/.htaccess
./tst/media/civicrm/templates_c/en_US/.htaccess
./tst/media/civicrm/upload/.htaccess
./tst/media/civicrm/custom/.htaccess
./tst/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/packages/IDS/.htaccess
./tst/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/packages/tcpdf/tools/.htaccess
./tst/administrator/components/com_civicrm/civicrm/packages/vendor/phenx/php-font-lib/.htaccess

I checked the first two .htaccess' and so far they've both looked like this:
<Files "*">
Order allow,deny
Deny from all
</Files>

Which I don't think is causing the www vs non-www issue you're referring to.

Any other ideas?

lcdweb · March 06, 2015, 05:37:23 pm

leave those in place, they serve other purposes.

the htaccess file in the web root doesn't *create* the www/non-www problem -- it solves it, by forcing the site to always use one or the other form (whichever form is used in your settings file). the absence of that file with the appropriate directives means you're currently not forcing one or the other form of the url.

I don't know that this will solve your problem. I'm just stating that the cookie error you received is frequently caused by mixed usage of the www/non-www forms of the url.

lajes · March 06, 2015, 07:57:41 pm

Sorry, I was rushing to keep dinner from burning and probably didn't explain myself very well.

Anyway, just to be sure things weren't being remapped in unintentional ways, I created a simplified htaccess to force the www to the non-www domain.

RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.(.*)$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://%1/$1 [R=301,L]

The results are still the same, when I try to access the CiviCRM menu it dumps as described above.

I should also point out that this latest test environment is based upon:
Joomla3.4
CiviCRM4.5.8

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Author Topic: Joomla/Civicrm admin menu crash (Read 4843 times)

lajes

Joomla/Civicrm admin menu crash

lcdweb

Re: Joomla/Civicrm admin menu crash

lajes

Re: Joomla/Civicrm admin menu crash

lcdweb

Re: Joomla/Civicrm admin menu crash

lajes

Re: Joomla/Civicrm admin menu crash

lajes

Re: Joomla/Civicrm admin menu crash

lajes

Re: Joomla/Civicrm admin menu crash

lcdweb

Re: Joomla/Civicrm admin menu crash

lajes

Re: Joomla/Civicrm admin menu crash

lcdweb

Re: Joomla/Civicrm admin menu crash

lajes

Re: Joomla/Civicrm admin menu crash