"Duplicated" entries (articles, modules, plugins, ...)

[Bizzaroland]

Hi,

I've been developing a site both on local and then on a temporary place on the final server. I had no issues, everything was fine. Business as usual.

Since the site is actually live, on the right folder, contents is duplicated many times, for no reason that I can figure. Plugins too, and modules (but not users).

The articles aren't actually duplicated: the database seems fine (there's only one version of each article), they only appear in the admin (not on the frontend, that shows the normal amount of articles). All duplicates have the same ID, I can modify them as there was only on. If I "check out" an article, it appears only once. As soon as I check it in, it goes back to be there multiple times.

Everything is ok, except for the fact that I have tens of duplicates in the list, and it keeps growing.

What is going on?! Has anyone encountered this issue?

Thanks for helping!

[Bizzaroland]

Update: apparently, things get duplicated when a user logs in (on the frontend). No earthly idea why, though.

[AMurray]

I'm not sure I understand completely. Is this an observable thing in the front end of the site? Or is it a back-end issue, or just a logged in user issue?

These ideas may have nothing to do with the observations you've mentioned in your question but it explains a circumstances where content may be duplicated.

Version History (Articles):
Refer to https://docs.joomla.org/Help310:Compone ... on_History. The version history allows you too restore an article from a previous version if required. They will appear (I think) in a separate database table to your published/active articles. They shouldn't appear on screen either with a logged on user or not, only the current version will..

With modules, you can of course make copies of them, that is by intentional design, and you can publish the duplicate(s) to different module positions. But I don't know if in your case this is accidental or intentional.

[Bizzaroland]

Thanks for your input!

It's not an observable thing on the frontend. Only on the backend. And nothing to see in the database (no duplicates there, the size doesn't change, I can't see anything weird). If I select one "version" of an article and delete it, all the "versions" are deleted. If I check out an article, it appears only once! When checking in, it's there dozens of time again.

The behaviour (the apparent autoreplication) seems to be somehow related to users loging in (I'v noticed that the number of replications is identical, or at least very close, to the number of logins).

It's very strange (to me, at least). Everything works fine, except for the fact that I have dozens of phantom articles, and modules, and plugins, ...

Oh! I have an idea! Be right back!

[Per Yngve Berg]

I suspect an error with a joined database table that return several rows for each article.

Enable debug and try out the database queries in phpmydmin to see what is returned.

The database queries is fond at the bottom in the debug info.

[Bizzaroland]

Well, my idea was a bust...

Per Yngve Berg, yours seems promising. I'll report back!

Thanks!

[Bizzaroland]

I deleted a bunch of useless tables (I have the bad habit to copy tables as a backup) and discovered in the process that I had a primary key issue.

That seems to have stopped the duplication (fingers crossed, I wouldn't jinx it!). I'm not sure how and why that was a problem exactly, in this context.

The multiple articles/modules/etc. still appear on the backend, though. It's like there's a weird cache somewhere (I deleted everything I thought of).

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!