SEF/SEO preventing template from working (except on home)

[aslyfox]

Hi everyone,
completely new but have read all the help/documentation and (nearly all) forum posts regarding SEF/SEO problems but i am having a particular problem that i can find an answer to. (if this problem has already got an answer please let me know where

using Siteground shared hosting
Joomla v1.5.7 (new install with no alterations/addtions)
when turn SEO url's on in global configuration (i have had to alter htaccess.txt to .htaccess ) the functionality works well.

the problem comes when i go to any other page on the site, the template fails to load and i have just the base content without styling etc...

some fixes i have already looked into:
- I have installed joomla on the root directory
- I have checked: apparently mod_rewrite is on in the server (however when i "uncomment" the mod_rewrite is on line in htaccess i get a server error 500 ((might this indicate that mod_rewrite is not on for my server?)))
- I have also tried "uncommenting" rewritebase \ in htaccess (i do not get a sever error 500, but this make no difference to the template problem)

I have found one other forum post with this problem, but no real details about what fixes they might have tried...
http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f ... w=previous

any help or work around very appriciated (i really need SEO and templates to both work.....)

[komang]

Its seem you have problem with your template css. maybe the link url part for this css was change by SEF automatically.

[aslyfox]

Its seem you have problem with your template css. maybe the link url part for this css was change by SEF automatically.

Hi Komang,
How would i check if this is happening, i know how to read CSS and HTML, but not so well that i know what i'm looking for in the joomla code....
thanks,

[aslyfox]

I have looked at the source code of the page with and with out the error..

when SEF/seo links are on..

pages with styles loading correctly have this refference for the CSS

<link rel="stylesheet" href="/~thedietb/templates/system/css/system.css" type="text/css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/~thedietb/templates/siteground-j15-59/css/template.css" type="text/css" />


pages with the error which do not load the styles correctly have this refference for the CSS

<link rel="stylesheet" href="/~thedietb/index.php/templates/system/css/system.css" type="text/css" />
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/~thedietb/index.php/templates/siteground-j15-59/css/template.css" type="text/css" />

the error appears to be (as you suggested komang) based on the URL for the styles being altered by activating the SEO features. (so i understand what is causing the problem) but i am unsure of how to correct this problem,

can anyone please point to how i can correct this?

thanks everyone,

[systeman]

Hi,

Hope you've fixed it by now.

I had the problem for a week or so, trying everything to fix it.

Then I thought to myself, this must be a URL cache conflict somewhere. So I deleted all the cache files and turned off caching in configuration.

Voila! problem solved.

So this has to be a Joomla bug.

Paul

[aslyfox]

Hi,
i must admit i had given up, after many hours of trying to learn about htaccess etc, but in the process of learning the Joomla system, i uninstalled then reinstalled the entire system. (i think the problem might have been from cache settings in the install that i was using when i first posted with this problem)

after learning about servers and a bit more confidence from hours of using the system and a push from systeman last post, i have retried the joomla SEO.
It's now working! FANTASTIC!!

message to newbies like me when having problems with SEO.
1. don't play around with any settings before you understand exactly what they do.
2. test each change you make, making only one change at a time (so you can undo and understand.
3. if you don't get a result with a change you make, change it back to the default it was on in the first place (leaving changes that you don't understand can cause unsolvable problems for you later!!)
4. check the following global configurations before you change anything else.
- SEO url's are on
- mod_rewrite is on
- cache is turned off
5. then check in your root directory, that the file htaccess.txt is renamed to
.htaccess
(many posts/ how to guides i have read have listed is as .htaccess. it should only be .htacess

everything should work then.
Thanks to systeman and komang for their help.

[systeman]

Hi all,

aslyfox meant SEF URL's, not SEO, but I think we all understand.

I haven't upgraded to J1.5.8 yet but I hope the cache problem is addressed because that is a major requirement of any VMS system to reduce server database load and to speed up page load times.

So, until this is fixed, if any of you have had the problem outlined in this thread and turned off Cache, you may experience a slowdown in page load.

Now to to cheer everyone up a bit. Some time ago I posted a little limerick on the Joomla forum and at the time had no idea it would have become so popular, worldwide, with people texting it to their friends. If you want to have a good laugh, read this, I have updated the title to reflect its relevance to Joomla admins.

An Ode to a Drunken Joomla Website Administrator

I AM NOT UNDER DA
AFFLUENCE OF INCAHOL
AS SOME TINKLE PEEP.

I'M NOT AS THUNK AS U DRINK.

I FOOL SO FEELISH, AND
DA DRUNKER I STAND
HERE DA LONGER I GET.

Heh! Heh!

Paul

[camppos]

thanks!@!

[Timeisnow]

Right.... How do you delete the cache files? What if they are empty folders in the cache folder?

[aslyfox]

turning cache off is done in "global configuration"
then "system"
cache is on the right hand side.

i have also found out recently that SEF urls work when you have a domain DNS pointed at your site eg: http://www.domain.com, but if you don't you get a 404 error. (eg http://12.34.567)

[xen]

i have also found out recently that SEF urls work when you have a domain DNS pointed at your site eg: http://www.domain.com, but if you don't you get a 404 error. (eg http://12.34.567)

THANK YOU

I have been trying to configure SEF urls for several hours and struggling with it - I was trying to learn how to set this up by using a dummy site with no DNS pointed at it, instead of editing one of my live sites - so I wouldn't accidentally damage one of the live ones live sites.

Once I read this, I tried setting up SEF urls on a live site with a domain name, and it worked!

Thanks again!

[Allen_1234]

Hello. I am having this problem as well. I have tried all the above but still not working.
Search Engine Friendly URLs, Use Apache mod_rewrite, Add suffix to URLs are all set to YES
Cache is turned off, was never on.
.htaccess.txt is renamed to .htaccess
What else can I try? My URLS are being rewritten to www.domain.net/about.html but I am getting a 404 when I click on them.

[dhuelsmann]

Hello. I am having this problem as well. I have tried all the above but still not working.
Search Engine Friendly URLs, Use Apache mod_rewrite, Add suffix to URLs are all set to YES
Cache is turned off, was never on.
.htaccess.txt is renamed to .htaccess
What else can I try? My URLS are being rewritten to http://www.domain.net/about.html but I am getting a 404 when I click on them.

Turn off all of the options for SEO under site in global configuration until you are ready to learn how to use them. When you are ready, review this tutorial http://www.scribd.com/doc/2300167/Jooml ... t-SEF-URLs

[lazerradial2003]

so is RewriteRule required for SEF URL's to work even if Use Apache mod_rewrite is set to no and only Search Engine Friendly URLs is set to yes?

[Shinteetah]

Turn off all of the options for SEO under site in global configuration until you are ready to learn how to use them. When you are ready, review this tutorial

The above is perhaps a bit gruff.... I am trying to take my fifth Joomla site live, and I came here with the same question. I've done everything right according to the tutorial you reference, and yet I'm still having problems. I've compared settings with my working sites to no avail. This is obviously something buried a bit deeper.

"Turn it off 'til you're ready to learn how to do it" isn't terribly helpful.

[rclerkin]

I have had a similar problem to this where the template gets broken when SEF is enabled.
Editing the configuration.php file as I described here; http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=431&t=381365
It broke the administrator login tho. Maybe that won't happen for everyone.

[subtitling]

Another one for the pile - I had this SEF/template problem too. And when I turned on mod_rewrite and renamed htaccess.txt, I got a 500 error.

I solved the problem by reading the htaccess.txt file itself, and doing what it said - I commented the line "Options +FollowSymLinks" by putting a hash at the start of it. Hey presto, my web host (Streamline) is happy - I can use mod_rewrite and rename htaccess without the site going down, and I can turn on SEF URLS without my template vanishing.

YMMV, but it's another possible solution, for use with some web hosts.

[tomred]

Hello,

I have been plagued by this SEF issue all day. I have identified the problem and I hope the solution for all.

The Problem:
On some server configurations Joomla is unable to discern the url correctly. This causes index.php to be considered as a directory and not the destination.

The Solution:
In the file configuration.php there is a var $live_site = ""; in this place the url that you are using to get to joomla. If you are on a dev site then enter the dev value but remember to set it to the live site value when you go live. This value should contain the full qualified domain name. var $live_site = "http://www.tomred.net"; for my site for example.

This means joomla can be certain of the base URL for your system. I know this is a bit late for some of you but I hope it will save time for any users out there who have just come upon this issue.

[Bonaparty]

I know this is a bit late for some of you but I hope it will save time for any users out there who have just come upon this issue.

It did! It did! Thanks a lot.

[ankarauni]

thanks:)

[edsontomaz]

Hello,

I have been plagued by this SEF issue all day. I have identified the problem and I hope the solution for all.

The Problem:
On some server configurations Joomla is unable to discern the url correctly. This causes index.php to be considered as a directory and not the destination.

The Solution:
In the file configuration.php there is a var $live_site = ""; in this place the url that you are using to get to joomla. If you are on a dev site then enter the dev value but remember to set it to the live site value when you go live. This value should contain the full qualified domain name. var $live_site = "http://www.tomred.net"; for my site for example.

This means joomla can be certain of the base URL for your system. I know this is a bit late for some of you but I hope it will save time for any users out there who have just come upon this issue.

It didn't work for me. Thought it worked (and I was so happy for that), but I found out that I was fooled for the cache of my browser.

But it dosen't mean it can't work for others.

[karban]

Hi,
Not sure if it's the same problem / bug, but there is actually a bug that has been identified in Joomla that is affecting SEF, and it can cause strange, long Hybrid URLs to show up in error logs, plus they also include the index.php despite our having mod_rewrite enabled etc.

Here is the link to the bug tracker: http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomla ... m_id=18688

BTW, if I hadn't noticed the errors logged within our Google error logs and also within a couple of 3rd party joomla extension's error logs, I'd still be totally unaware there was any problem with our site - and lord only knows how many other Joomla sites are actually affected yet still have no idea, & no idea that their SEO is slowly going down the toilet too...).. we now have 1000's & 1000's of errors listed in Google error logs.....

Problem stops immediately when I disable SEF, and returns the moment SEF is re-enabled. Some others have said it is connected to Joomla cache also, but for our site it seems it is triggered by merely enabling SEF (yep, it seems that there's a few of us who are all affected with this same, CRITICAL problem affecting our URLs....)

For our site the problem appeared around about August, so perhaps its a problem with one of the recent Joomla upgrades..... also, installing sh404SEF doesn't appear to be a solution as someone else listed in the bug tracker had sh404SEf installed when their problems began.....

The bug tracker has confirmed there is a bug btw, & the person who reported it has been waiting a fix for almost a year now, and yet there is still no-one even assigned to fix it.....so anyone else with the same problem please report it so it will hopefully get fixed soon.....(if I have to wait another year for a critical bug like this to be fixed & one which is ruining our SEO etc then as much as I love Joomla I think we'd be forced to move to something less buggy such as WordPress maybe, I have heard Drupal is very good too & perhaps that is why it is becoming so popular at the expense of Joomla - but a year to fix a problem such as this & one which affects your URLs is just not good enough, except for hobby sites.....)

[321solutions]

I had a few sites do this, weirdly what I noticed to fix them all is when you rewrite your url, don't rewrite the urls with the category so your url should read http://www.domain.com/sefurl.html not http://www.domain.com/websites/sefurl.html it seems to work on every site. I use AceSef personally but you can re-write your urls with the category off and that should do it. It has worked for me in the past. Maybe not the best solution but it works.

[karban]

Hi 321solutions,

Thanks for kindly posting your advice & possible solution.

Unfortunately I don't think it's the same thing as my particular problem though, as I haven't hand-written / hard coded any rewrites manually in the .htaccess file etc (& neither had the original poster of the bug tracker - he was also using sh404SEF but it didn't help fix his problem, which seems identical to mine, and AceSEF is similar product to sh404SEF, so I'm not sure if that or any 3rd party SEF extension is going to help with this issue either, unfortunately - the bugtracker said at one stage that it is possibly caused by a known bug within the joomla menu module.....)
I had only enabled the (3) standard SEF parameters in the global configurations (....& re-named htaccess.txt to .htaccess, of course...) therefore I am assuming that it should have worked..... (....I know, one should NEVER assume anything lol!!). It is also a fairly recent problem for us too - prior to approx. August everything was OK (site is approx. 12 m old)......
All our links on the sites front-end are still working, it is only showing up in the error logs (apparently it can also happen on some sites if Joomla cache is enabled, too.....a few people have had problems with the Joomla cache so it seems there is a bug with Joomla cache as well).
Regards,
Karen

[George You]

Hello,

I have been plagued by this SEF issue all day. I have identified the problem and I hope the solution for all.

The Problem:
On some server configurations Joomla is unable to discern the url correctly. This causes index.php to be considered as a directory and not the destination.

The Solution:
In the file configuration.php there is a var $live_site = ""; in this place the url that you are using to get to joomla. If you are on a dev site then enter the dev value but remember to set it to the live site value when you go live. This value should contain the full qualified domain name. var $live_site = "http://www.tomred.net"; for my site for example.

This means joomla can be certain of the base URL for your system. I know this is a bit late for some of you but I hope it will save time for any users out there who have just come upon this issue.

I'm pretty sure the issue above is my problem. But I'm new to Joomla and web design and do not understand where to find configuration.php and exactly what I need to write. My site is: calbeaches.com. What do I write and where exactly do I place it? Any help from anyone would be much appreciated.

Thanks!

[lettmein]

Hi there

I am getting the same problem.

I have followed all the instructions suggested in this thread (With regard to the configuration.php i got a fatal error when trying to save the file??) but the template is still lost when i navigate away from the homepage..

my site is www.lettmein.com

If anyone can offer advise would be much appreciated

Anthony

[George You]

Anthony,

I finally figured it out. I just followed someone else's recommendation on the forum and I deleted everything and started over. I reinstalled joomla and the first thing I did was change the htaccess.txt file to .htaccess. Then, I immediately went to global configuration and changed all 3 SEO settings to yes. I checked to make sure that worked and then I uploaded my template that I wanted. I checked that and everything worked.

George

[Danyand]

Apparently having problems with the .css files can also affect SEO, I should pay attention to that when I'll join, as far as I know the network also provides support for this kind of troubles. I am glad I found this thread, there's a lot of valuable information here.

[oscarpc21]

Thanks!. This thread has helped me even two years after.

[adammarley]

i know how to read CSS and HTML, but not so well that i know what i'm looking for in the joomla code....