Upgrade to 2.5 displays /Category/ in SEF URLs with 404

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shassler
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Upgrade to 2.5 displays /Category/ in SEF URLs with 404

Post by shassler » Sun Feb 24, 2013 8:12 pm

Upgraded from 1.5.26 to 2.5.9 with jupgrade. Removed all jupgrade and jos tables from database. Installed latest template version. Still looked good however any article assigned to a category includes /Category/ in the URL resulting in a 404 error such as ...com/Category/blog/article-alias... Articles not assigned to a category display fine. Turning off SEF URLs and all menu links are fine.

I've wasted hours changing settings and trying to solve this, and I'm sure it's some little thing I've stupidly overlooked. Help, please.

Thanks,
Sharon

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Re: Upgrade to 2.5 displays /Category/ in SEF URLs with 404

Post by omd123 » Tue Feb 26, 2013 6:51 pm

Hi Sharon,

I do have the same issue on one site. We did do exact the same upgrade. Hoped to find a solution here.

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Re: Upgrade to 2.5 displays /Category/ in SEF URLs with 404

Post by shassler » Tue Feb 26, 2013 7:02 pm

To make this clear, it's the word "Category" that's displayed in the URL, not an alias for a category.

No one? Really? I don't care if you respond with disdain because it's some ridiculous setting I missed, I just need a solution. And now two of us (hello, omd123) have this problem so maybe others will benefit from an answer.

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Re: Upgrade to 2.5 displays /Category/ in SEF URLs with 404

Post by Per Yngve Berg » Tue Feb 26, 2013 9:32 pm

Where does those links appear?

Don't you have a menu item to the category?

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Re: Upgrade to 2.5 displays /Category/ in SEF URLs with 404

Post by shassler » Tue Feb 26, 2013 9:57 pm

They're in the URL, the page address. For blog articles, I have a menu link for blog category which used to have a URL like website.com/blog-name and displayed the blog page with 12 article intros. Now it's website.com/Category/blog-name. An article URL was website.com/blog-name/article-name but is now website.com/Category/blog-name/article-name. The actual word "/Category/" was not there before the upgrade from 1.5.26 to 2.5.9. All result in 404 errors.

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Re: Upgrade to 2.5 displays /Category/ in SEF URLs with 404

Post by leolam » Wed Feb 27, 2013 6:18 am

Suggest you 'rebuild' the menu's and the categories first and see if that resolves. Click top right and click rebuild (which is a "clear-the-mess' help) . This might resolve since SEO in Joomla 2.5 adds the category name in the SEO of the link and if the link-alias is wrong (here you go!) you get 404

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Re: Upgrade to 2.5 displays /Category/ in SEF URLs with 404

Post by shassler » Wed Feb 27, 2013 2:43 pm

Thanks for your suggestion, Leo, but I just discovered the problem! I was using External URLs for the menu items that were causing me problems. External URL doesn't work in 2.5 for SEFs. I changed the type of menu items to Text Separator which gave them an alias that works with 2.5 and saved the new menu type. That worked. Then I changed them back to External URL. YAY!

Sharon

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Re: Upgrade to 2.5 displays /Category/ in SEF URLs with 404

Post by leolam » Wed Feb 27, 2013 3:20 pm

shassler wrote:External URL doesn't work in 2.5 for SEFs.
Sharon, If you mean that external url's have no alias you are right. External url's with their links work perfectly well in J2.5 so curious what you exactly describe?

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Re: Upgrade to 2.5 displays /Category/ in SEF URLs with 404

Post by shassler » Wed Feb 27, 2013 3:41 pm

I'm talking about having a parent menu item that doesn't link to anything, not a menu item that actually links to an external URL. I remember reading somewhere, maybe in this forum, that to use SEFs with the type of "go-nowhere" parent menu I wanted, you have to first set the menu type to Text Separator which allows an alias such as my-category-name. Then you can set it to External URL and it works with SEFs.

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Re: Upgrade to 2.5 displays /Category/ in SEF URLs with 404

Post by leolam » Wed Feb 27, 2013 3:56 pm

shassler wrote:I'm talking about having a parent menu item that doesn't link to anything, not a menu item that actually links to an external URL. I remember reading somewhere, maybe in this forum, that to use SEFs with the type of "go-nowhere" parent menu I wanted, you have to first set the menu type to Text Separator which allows an alias such as my-category-name. Then you can set it to External URL and it works with SEFs.
Right that is correct...In Joomla 1.5 you could use external URL's with the hashtag (#) in the link.... That is indeed no go and the method used now works indeed

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Re: Upgrade to 2.5 displays /Category/ in SEF URLs with 404

Post by shassler » Wed Feb 27, 2013 4:00 pm

This is just one of those little things to remember when using jupgrade which, other than adjusting for the external URL menu type, worked like a charm.

Thanks for your suggestions and comments, Leo.

Sharon

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Re: Upgrade to 2.5 displays /Category/ in SEF URLs with 404

Post by Aaronh1 » Wed Apr 24, 2013 6:35 am

Sharon,

I have been struggling with this for days and after reading through topic after unhelpful (and often ignored) topics on the forum it seems like your solution might be what I must use.
I was using External URLs for the menu items that were causing me problems. External URL doesn't work in 2.5 for SEFs. I changed the type of menu items to Text Separator which gave them an alias that works with 2.5 and saved the new menu type. That worked. Then I changed them back to External URL. YAY!
Could you please tell me exactly what steps you did?
I have upgraded from 1.5.26 to 2.5.9

All of my links that go to a single article work fine. I have one menu link that I want to go the a category blog layout that keeps coming up with a 404. I've tried rebuilding, deleting the menu item and emptying the trash, turning off SEF's, turning back on SEF's, logging out, clearing my browser cache, shutting down the browser, reopening and starting the process of adding the menu item all over, and keep hitting the same wall.

Thanks in advance!

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Re: Upgrade to 2.5 displays /Category/ in SEF URLs with 404

Post by shassler » Wed Apr 24, 2013 3:30 pm

Hi, Aaron,

My problem was with parent menu links that I didn't want to link to anything so only their drop-down children were linking. You're trying to link to a category blog which is different. If you set up a log in for me, I can take a look but do NOT post that here. PM me or go to one of my sites to contact me directly.

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Re: Upgrade to 2.5 displays /Category/ in SEF URLs with 404

Post by jcalvert » Thu Dec 12, 2013 7:56 am

I was seeing the same problem as the original poster – "Category" was being added into the URL. I solved this by doing the "Rebuild" on the menus and the categories as suggested by leolam.

The site I was having trouble with was upgraded from Joomla 1.5.x to Joomla 2.5.x. The menu links were all correct after the upgrade; however, I noticed that when I changed the title of a link, this is when "Category" (and other strange text) got inserted into the URL. This was for a single article, not a blog.

JC

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Re: Upgrade to 2.5 displays /Category/ in SEF URLs with 404

Post by pvmtcrb » Wed May 04, 2016 5:56 pm

leolam wrote:Suggest you 'rebuild' the menu's and the categories first and see if that resolves. Click top right and click rebuild (which is a "clear-the-mess' help) . This might resolve since SEO in Joomla 2.5 adds the category name in the SEO of the link and if the link-alias is wrong (here you go!) you get 404

Leo 8)

This totally worked for me!(Joomla 3.5.1)
by the way, mine was a menu item without an article (a login form) and /Category/ was prepended to the link - searched through SEF settings etc, and Rebuild was the magic solution!! THANK YOU LEO! :)


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