My menu links won't work properly - HELP

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ericafath
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My menu links won't work properly - HELP

Post by ericafath » Fri Oct 08, 2010 12:02 am

I created this site in the spring and it was working great. I've had some great feedback from it and all was fine.

http://www.thediabeticconnection.com/

Today I discovered (probably been about 2-3 weeks since I did anything on that site) ... so I discover that when you click on a menu item - it takes you to a totally white page. I have loads of articles and posts on that site. Why won't they display?

On the top menu there is a link to a recipe box which is a sub domain and a totally different Joomla ... and all the recipes show up correctly there. Why won't the main site show properly? I haven't changed any setting in the admin section as I haven't logged in in several weeks.

It's all the menus on the left that are the problem.
I did notice it odd ... when I put my mouse over the menu and link it shows the URL that it links to to be:

http://www.thediabeticconnection.com/in ... &Itemid=40

yet when you click on it it takes you to:
http://www.thediabeticconnection.com/dc ... &Itemid=40

so I checked out this file dcpartners.htm It's totally blank, just white space.

I tried rebuilding a menu by making a brand new item ... and in the set up it says to link to a location of index.php? but when I save it and go try it on a different computer ... it redirects to dcpartners.htm. I tried deleting the dcpartners file ... then the whole this times out and goes to some error search page.

This site worked like a charm all spring and summer ... No one has logged in to the admin site to my knowledge as I'm the only user registered.

Ideas anyone on how to fix this?

I'm beginning to wonder if I was hacked... or if something happened on the server. I do remember in early September my host was down and all their servers were down due to major power failures as a result of some big storm in the south. Could it be that caused a problem? But all my other sites are functioning just fine so that doesn't make sense.


Suggestions are welcome.
Thanks
Erica

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jmuehleisen
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Re: My menu links won't work properly - HELP

Post by jmuehleisen » Fri Oct 08, 2010 2:41 am

That's a very interesting problem, for sure.

I would suggest this to start. See if there is a file in the root folder of your website named ".htaccess"

If it is there, rename it to something like htaccess-root.txt

Then, test the site to see if that makes any difference. Let us know what happens.
John Muehleisen
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ericafath
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Re: My menu links won't work properly - HELP

Post by ericafath » Fri Oct 08, 2010 3:18 am

John, you're a magician.

I did it ... and the links worked. Thanks

Do you have any idea how that file got that way?
I opened it a text editor and this is what it said:



RewriteEngine on

RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^thediabeticconnection.com$ [OR]
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www.thediabeticconnection.com$
RewriteRule ^index\.php$ "http\:\/\/www\.thediabeticconnection\.com\/dcpartners\.htm" [R=302,L]


It was totally different from the original file as I had a copy of that on my local computer. So I know I didn't change that file ... does that mean I was hacked or something?

At least your fix solved my problem. Thanks so much.
Erica

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Re: My menu links won't work properly - HELP

Post by jmuehleisen » Fri Oct 08, 2010 3:37 am

Wonderful. I'm glad that you got your site back up and running.
So I know I didn't change that file ... does that mean I was hacked or something?
Possibly, but generally hackers don't do those kinds of hacks. At least I've never seen one like that.

So, to the question "what happened here?" ... I have to say, I have no idea at all.

But, at least you have your site back in working order.
John Muehleisen
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Re: My menu links won't work properly - HELP

Post by seventhstar » Sat Apr 23, 2011 3:13 am

I have a similar problem. I'm running Joomla 1.6.2 on my site which is experiencing almost the exact same problem. I went ahead and changed the .htaccess file on my site and the featured files now show up on my site on my main home page... however, only two pages (part of the original sample file install files) work on my site... nothing else. None of the links work properly as they all show a white screen, but show the correct URL in the address bar. It's basically just my new articles and menu items that don't seem to work. I also notice that when I change the homepage to something other than a featured articles page to a regular article I also get a white screen. Any idea of how to solve this? Do you require more information from me to help diagnose this issue?

Not sure where to go from here.

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Re: My menu links won't work properly - HELP

Post by jmuehleisen » Sat Apr 23, 2011 5:07 am

When you get a white screen instead of the page you expect, do a right click on the screen in your browser and select <show source> to see if Joomla is generating any code at all.

If it is generating at least some of the page's HTML, then sometimes you can see where it had the problem completing the code generation, and that can sometimes give you a clue as to where the problem might be (some module or plugin that is causing the problem).

You can also try changing templates temporarily to beez or milkyway to see if that makes a difference.

Sometimes you can try disabling the modules on your site and see if the site renders with the modules disabled. If it does, then turn them on one at a time (refreshing the site after each one is enabled) until you find the module that is causing the problem.

Sometimes it's just tedious things like that that are necessary to troubleshoot these.

Now, is it possible that your new articles were created by cutting and pasting the article content in from Microsoft Word? That sometimes causes problems as well, but generally not a total white screen.

If you want, give us your website URL and we'll be glad to take a look. Sometimes seeing what you see can help us narrow the possibilities down a bit.
John Muehleisen
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Re: My menu links won't work properly - HELP

Post by seventhstar » Sat Apr 23, 2011 12:45 pm

Thanks for the suggestions. It appears that the problem lays with my template. Are there any good template WYSIWYG editors out there that you know of and that you would recommend?

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Re: My menu links won't work properly - HELP

Post by jmuehleisen » Sat Apr 23, 2011 12:59 pm

You can take a look at Artisteer (http://artisteer.com) as template creator / editor. It's not perfect, but it is impressive within its limitations.

And depending on your skill level, Dreamweaver (the latest version) can export to a Joomla template. I've never tried it myself ... I just happened to read it on the features list.

Perhaps others can also make recommendations from their experience.
John Muehleisen
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Re: My menu links won't work properly - HELP

Post by Shargraphics » Tue Sep 20, 2011 3:07 pm

I am having the same kind of problem except when I click my links they just go to my homepage.
I tried the suggestion
If it is there, rename it to something like htaccess-root.txt
Now it just goes to oops page.
I created the site in a sub folder and moved everything live, but when I click the links it goes back to the home page in the subfolder......

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Re: My menu links won't work properly - HELP

Post by kathpoole » Tue Jan 31, 2012 11:45 pm

I opened up a site I'd been working on last week and the menu links didn't work today. Found this solution. My .htaccess page was completely empty. What the ???. I copied my htaccess.txt and pasted it into .htaccess file and everything works now.

Having .htaccess code completely disappear, then the site not working makes me look like a jerk, as a developer. Everything worked last week. How could this happen? I'm trying to make my life easier, by using Joomla! not make me look bad. Ugh.

Any ideas?

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Re: My menu links won't work properly - HELP

Post by jmuehleisen » Wed Feb 01, 2012 1:05 am

My .htaccess page was completely empty. What the? ... How could this happen?
I don't know how it happens, but I've seen it too.

I always assumed that someone at tech support at the host had done something.

Just a guess, but it IS irritating.
John Muehleisen
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