Assigned Modules Do Not Appear On Page

[_anonym]

Greetings,

The joomla 2.5 website in question can be found at http://nineinchbride.com

If you visit the REVIEWS page, http://nineinchbride.com/nine-inch-bride-reviews.html, you will see reviews listed on the left, with two custom modules assigned on the right.

I have a Book Two Reviews sub-menu item page to which the same custom modules are assigned. You can view this page at http://nineinchbride.com/index.php?opti ... icle&id=22

There are several problems with this page (like the word "Article" appearing at the top and the weird URL), but the all important problem is that the two assigned modules simply fail to appear at all.

I am attaching a screenshot of the Edit Menu Item for the Book Two Reviews sub-menu item showing the modules in question are indeed assigned. Beyond that, I am at a total loss what more needs to be done to have these modules appear.

Help resolving this issue is deeply appreciated. Thanks.

[toivo]

Have both pages been assigned to the same default template?

Does your default template have the template position 'right'?

The word 'Articles' may be the name of the article category. You may be able to turn it off in one of the options, possibly even in the menu item.

[_anonym]

Hi, Toivo, thanks for responding.

Yes, they are both assigned to the same default template.

Yes, the template has the position 'right.' You can see this in the http://nineinchbride.com/nine-inch-bride-reviews.html page, which has the modules assigned in an identical way.

I have not created a category called 'Article.' There is no such category listed.

[Per Yngve Berg]

I have a Book Two Reviews sub-menu item page to which the same custom modules are assigned. You can view this page at http://nineinchbride.com/index.php?opti ... icle&id=22

You have assigned the module to a Menu item, but there is no Menu item in the URL. The link should contain "&Itemid=xx", where xx is the id of the menu item.

[_anonym]

Hi, Per Yngve Berg,

Thank you for responding.

I am afraid I do not understand what you are saying. The menu item ID is 613. What should the URL be then?

[Per Yngve Berg]

http://nineinchbride.com/index.php?opti ... Itemid=613

[_anonym]

BRAVO !!!

Thank you so very much Per Yngve Berg! You have solved the main problem, and that of the word "article" appearing.

How and where in Joomla can I find what the URL to any given page should be? Is it spelled out at length anywhere in the Joomla Admin interface??

Also, related, is there no way to get to this page with a simpler URL?? If you look at any of the other pages on the Main menu (at the top) you will see NONE of those URLs are as long and strange as the one that gets the visitor to the Book Two Reviews page.

[Per Yngve Berg]

They are converted to SEF with JROUTE()

https://api.joomla.org/cms-3/classes/JRoute.html

Where are those links originated from? It can't be a Menu Module.

[_anonym]

Where are what links originated from?

The links on the main menu at the top of all pages seem to come from the "alias" for the menu item, as far as I can tell. However the alias for the Book Two reviews page is

book-two-reviews

but http://nineinchbride.com/book-two-reviews.html does nothing but produce an error.

[_anonym]

Correction: the alias for the Book Two reviews "menu item" is "book-two-reviews"

The alias for the Book Two Reviews article itself is "reviews-book-two-suited-for-war"

However, http://nineinchbride.com/reviews-book-t ... r-war.html produces the same page not found error.

[_anonym]

Actually the 404 error reads "category not found," though I definitely do have a book two reviews category and that is assigned to the book two reviews article.

[_anonym]

Per Yngve Berg,

I am having the exact same problem again with another page. Even with your "itemid=" addition, and the proper assignment of the custom module, the module does not appear on the right.

Please see URL

http://nineinchbride.com/index.php?opti ... &Itemid=23

[toivo]

Where did you get the value 23 in 'Itemid='?

If you have a menu that lists only some of the articles, you can add all the other articles to a separate menu, often called 'Ghost Menu' but it can have any alias, for example 'article'.

This technique has two benefits. Each of those menu items is linked to the default template, or to the template you want, which allows the modules to be assigned. Secondly, if SEF URLs are enabled, the URLs become simpler.

[_anonym]

Thanks for responding.

The Joomla system generated the 'itemid' numeral. I looked and couldn't find a duplicate.

That's an interesting idea, the 'Ghost Menu,' I was trying to do something like that, but I did not succeed. I'm afraid I'd need a step-by-step 'how-to.'

[toivo]

It is like any other menu. You create a new menu, add items to it but then do not create a module that would display the contents of that menu. That is why the 'ghost menu' remains hidden from visitors but it still does its job.

[_anonym]

Well, I tried that, couldn't get it to work.

[toivo]

What did not work?

[_anonym]

Greetings,

The joomla 2.5 website in question can be found at http://nineinchbride.com

If you visit the DOWNLOAD page, http://nineinchbride.com/download-novel-now.html, you will see various text information displayed on the left side, with a custom modules assigned on the right displaying purchase choices.

I have a Book Two Download sub-menu item page to which a similar custom module is assigned for making a purchase choice for book two. You can view this page at http://nineinchbride.com/index.php?opti ... &Itemid=23

This is the second time this problem has arisen. The prior instance was with the REVIEWS page for book two, and you can find that discussion here: http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=624&t=933220

Joomla Master Per Yngve Berg solved that problem with the addition of "&Itemid=___" to the end of the URl. However, in the current problem page, we have included the "&Itemid=23" to the URl and yet the assigned module still fails to appear on the right. I wish I understood what is going on here, it is extremely frustrating and disheartening when nothing seems to make sense anymore in Joomla Admin.

As before, this new problem page has several problems (like the word "Article" appearing at the top and the fact that the alias for the page "download-book-2-suited-for-war" will not work as a URL for the page the way the alias works as URL for the other pages in the top menu), but the all important problem for me right now is that the assigned module simply fails to appear at all.

I am attaching a screenshot of the Edit Menu Item for the DOWNLOAD 2 sub-menu item showing the modules in question are indeed assigned. Beyond that, I am at a total loss what more needs to be done to have these modules appear.

Help resolving this issue is deeply appreciated, not only for my work flow, but at this point for my sanity. Thanks.

[_anonym]

The URL did not work. 404 Error message.

[toivo]

So you added an article into a menu, the menu item showed a URL, you copied the URL from 'Link' and pasted it into a browser and got a 404 Not Found page?

Are the access levels of the category and the article both Public?

[_anonym]

Yes, they are public. But I deleted the menu and the category. No longer have them. I'd rather the system work they way it is supposed to work than pursue a workaround anyway. Please see the new post on this problem at http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=624&t=933359 where it is happening again in spite of Per Yngve Berg's "fix" for the url. Why doesn't the Joomla system work the way it is supposed to? Why can't I just use the alias for the URL they way all the other site links are constituted? Please see new post. Thank you.

[Alejo]

Is this link any better?

http://nineinchbride.com/index.php?opti ... Itemid=537

It seems to me you are confusing article IDs with menu IDs. In your screenshot you can see the ID of the menu is 537 which is why I changed the Itemid to that number. Modules are assigned to menus so that's the important number there.

[toivo]

Yes, they are public. But I deleted the menu and the category.

That caused the 404 message.

To save everyone's time, your new topic will be merged with the current one.

[_anonym]

Alejo, yes that solved the problem, and a thousand thanks to you! My sanity is restored. ;-)

Yes indeed, I am confusing which ID is which.

For the sake of absolute clarity, however, could you please state which id is which in the URl: http://nineinchbride.com/index.php?opti ... Itemid=537

article&id=23 -- Is this the ARTICLE ID ?

&Itemid=537 -- Is this the MENU ITEM ID ?

Toivo, thanks for merging the posts, that's fine with me.

The only question remaining for me is why can't I use what is in the alias field for the URL instead of this "index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=23&Itemid=537" gobbledygook? All the other links use the text in the alias field separated by hyphens, e.g. http://nineinchbride.com/nine-inch-bride-reviews.html

Thanks again to everyone, and Alejo, may a thousand blessings descend upon you!

[toivo]

You are right, id= uses the id of the article and Itemid= has the id from the menu, which uniquely identifies the menu item and the template that has been assigned to it. If no template has been assigned, the default template will be used to display the page.

Depending on the structure of the menu and the categories, the router will observe the SEF settings and generate the friendly URL and add .html if that has been configured.

[_anonym]

Toivo,

Thank you for confirming.

However, all HAS been CONFIGURED to do so, as evidenced by all the other URLs. However, it fails to work with these two SUB-menu items (i.e., the book two review is under the parent Review, and the book two download is under the parent Download). I can provide screenshots of everything to show you if need be, just can't provide them right now. Perhaps tomorrow I can show you the structure and configs are in place for SEF, all very simple, nothing complicated about it, yet the URLs fail.

[Alejo]

You are welcome! Here's the thing. If you are creating a menu for a specific article, then the non-SEF URL for that page would look like this:

Code: Select all

http://nineinchbride.com/index.php?Itemid=537

And that should produce the same results as the other link I provided. The Itemid is the menu id so Joomla knows how to route that request to the appropriate page.

From your screenshot I was able to infer what the correct SEF URL would be and it looks like this:

Code: Select all

http://nineinchbride.com/download-novel-now/download-book-2-suited-for-war.html

That's because you selected the "download" menu as the parent, and that one has this format:

Code: Select all

http://nineinchbride.com/download-novel-now.html

[_anonym]

Jeez Looeez, you're brilliant! Actually, I feel a little stupid for not having figured that out well enough to have at least tried it before yelling 'the sky is falling' here. ;-) Makes such good sense.

You have restored my faith in Joomla, and you make this forum shine.

Thank you.

[Alejo]

Glad to help and I am happy you could finally sort this out.