Topic: Standalone menu broken

[Sean]

Hello,

When I use the standalone option in SimplePortal the main menu on my forum ends up broken. There is no link to the forum itself (should be after "Home"), and what would have been the link gets squished into an orange region on the right side of the menu:



The orange region contains the link to the forum.

Additionally, I get errors like the following in my log for every page that gets visited (not just the forum/index.php page):

Code: [Select]

http://diabolo.ca/forum/index.php?
8: Undefined index: href
File: /srv/www/diabolo.ca/public_html/forum/Themes/default/index.template.php
Line: 422
And

Code: [Select]

http://diabolo.ca/forum/index.php?
8: Undefined index: title
File: /srv/www/diabolo.ca/public_html/forum/Themes/default/index.template.php
Line: 423
Lines 422 and 423 are:

Code: [Select]

<a class="', $button['active_button'] ? 'active ' : '', 'firstlevel" href="', $button['href'], '"', isset($button['target']) ? ' target="' . $button['target'] . '"' : '', '>
<span class="', isset($button['is_last']) ? 'last ' : '', 'firstlevel">', $button['title'], '</span>

This happens a lot of the time, but not all the time. It seems to randomly come and go, which seems strange. It usually just affects the site for people not logged in, but I have seen it happen when I've been logged in too. I have never seen it happen when not in standalone mode. My standalone file is named index.php and is in the root domain below /forum. If it helps, the site is: http://diabolo.ca/

Edit - Just in the time it took to make this post it stopped happening again.
Edit2 - Forgot to mention: this is SMF 2.0 RC3 and SimplePortal 2.3.2.

Originally I thought this was just a legacy from old code lingering from a conflicting mod. So, yesterday I made a fresh install of SMF (but still using the old database) and installed only SimplePortal. Same problem.

Any ideas how I can fix this?

Thanks!

[AngelinaBelle]

Before doing the fresh SMF install, did you uninstall all mods?
When you re-installed SimplePortal, did it pass all tests?
 
Please attach a copy of Subs.php -- that's where the forum button gets created.
 
Next time the problem happens, can you capture the HTML with "view source", save it as a file, and attach it to a post?
 

[Sean]

Thanks for the quick response.

Subs.php is attached. There are now other mods installed again. Specifically these:



I should clarify, by "re-install" I really meant: archive all the old files to a different folder, download a completely fresh copy of the SMF files, change the Settings.php file to point to my old database, and then re-install SimplePortal. I didn't remove the old mods, but since most mod removals don't make any database modifications (that I'm aware of) I didn't think it would make a difference.

Yes, re-installing SimplePortal passed all tests.

I haven't had a chance to try it on a fresh database, but I can try that sometime soon.

I will attach the HTML source code when I next see the issue. I remember looking through it weeks ago trying to solve this, but unfortunately I can't remember the details.

Thanks to the whole team for the wonderful mod and for the support.

[AngelinaBelle]

Subs.php looks correct for the forum button.
 
Do you have caching enabled?

[Sean]

Yes, I do have caching enabled. I have seen it happen with both level 1 and level 2 caching although typically I have level 2 enabled and perhaps I didn't wait long enough with level 1 to see the changes permeate. I don't have a good grasp of what these levels correspond to. I also have XCache installed on the server.

I don't believe it is simply the file caching because I have tried clearing out the cache folder and the problem persisted. However, perhaps it's possible this is somehow a result of XCache?

[AngelinaBelle]

Next time the problem happens, can you capture the HTML with "view source", save it as a file, and attach it to a post?

[Sean]

Thanks for the reminder. It hasn't happened since I wrote this. I can only assume it was related to the caching. That's the only reason I can think of for why it would come and go.

Either there was originally a problem with the code in my Subs.php file and that continued to be fed occasionally via the cached version or there was a slightly corrupt version lingering in the cache.
Edit - crossed out - see message below.

I have since tried clearing the cache and switching the caching level from 2 to 1 and then eventually back to 2.

If it ever happens again I will post the source code here. Thanks so much for the help.

[Nathaniel]

Interesting issue, it took me a little while to find and debug, caching is a real PITA for testing.

I'll try to explain what's happening, sorry if its a bit unclear.

Essentially, SMF makes a separate menu cache for every possible combinations of membergroups and languages (this is because the menu can change for each user, but will be the same for some users), this cache is made when a user loads the page (only for their specific set of membergroups/languages). The menu cache created for that user is then used for every user with the same membergroups/language until a certain amount of time has passed, then SMF will remake the cache.

The problem is that SimplePortal defines a $context['disable_sp'] variable, that is used to hide the 'forum' button under certain circumstances. Unfortunately, if the page load when the cache is created, is also one when the 'forum' button is meant to be hidden, the 'forum' button won't be put into the menu cache, and every single user who uses that cache will not see the 'forum' button.

There are two quick solutions:
1) Set caching to level 1, then SMF won't cache the menu at all.
2) Make the edit below (twice).

Code: ("Find (Sources/Subs.php)") [Select]

'menu_buttons-' . implode('_', $user_info['groups']) . '-' . $user_info['language']

Code: ("Replace") [Select]

'menu_buttons-' . implode('_', $user_info['groups']) . '-' . $user_info['language'] . '-' . empty($context['disable_sp'])
Reported to the ProjectTracker:
http://simpleportal.net/index.php?issue=383.0

[bigguy]

I have the same problem right now and I just installed the new version on 2.0 RC4. Sorry to open up an old topic.

[AngelinaBelle]

I've made a note of this on the bug tracker topic.
Did you have a look at the fix above? Can it be applied to your 2.3.3 on SMF 2.0RC4 forum? Does it fix the problem?
 
 
 

[bigguy]

I tried the fix and it does not work at all. To see the menu in the forum go here:

http://community.crazycanadian.net/index.php

I have just reversed these changes and still no luck

[bigguy]

As far as I can tell I have fixed this by replacing the following line (Subs.php):

Code: [Select]

// Figure out which action we are doing so we can set the active tab.
// Default to home.
$current_action = $modSettings['sp_portal_mode'] == 3 && empty($context['standalone']) && empty($context['disable_sp']) ? 'main' : 'home';
with this:

Code: [Select]

// Figure out which action we are doing so we can set the active tab.
// Default to home.
$current_action = 'home';

[AngelinaBelle]

Hmmm... I've never seen that problem in standalone mode.
Then again, I've got

Code: [Select]

$current_action = $modSettings['sp_portal_mode'] == 3 && empty($context['standalone']) && empty($context['disable_sp']) ? 'forum' : 'home';[/code]
 
I don't see 'main' any where in install2.xml, and I'm not sure what 'main' would do for you.
 
 

[bigguy]

main on there is what I name the front page (portal) So I have a link on my site next to home called main. Home gets renamed to forum.

[AngelinaBelle]

The original poster was having a problem that was caused by caching.
If turning off caching fixed the problem, then caching could have been your problem.
 
If not, you had a different problem.
 
Did you try turning off caching?