General Troubleshooting Guide

Users Can't Log In

In the event that no user (including admins) can seem to log onto the web site, there is a possibility the 'sessions' database table has become corrupted. Though it appears the log-in process worked, it still shows no user logged in.  This is true for all users, even the super-admin.

...

The Site Displays a Nearly Blank Page with "Resouce Not Found"

In the event you browse to the web site and see a nearly empty page with a "resouce not found" error displayed, there is a possibility the 'conf/config.php' file is missing, corrupt, or unable to connect to the exponent database. You can browse to your web site, but you only see a portion of the web site header with an incorrect style, and see a message about "resource not found."

...

The Site Displays Some Good Pages and Some Broken Pages

If your site seems to display some pages ok, but others are broken or the style is lost,

...

The Site Works OK, Except When You Turn Search Engine Friendly (SEF) On.

If you are able to browse around your site, but when you turn on the Search Engine Friendly switch in Site Configuration, you are always returned to the default page or can't get to any other pages. 

...

Modules are Displayed, but Can't be Edited, even with Permission

If you can see a module and its content, but can't change the settings or edit it and you have appropriate permissions, the module is probably inactive.

...

Email sent from the web site loses it's style or has the wrong return address.

Most likely you have the 'Use php's mail() function instead of SMTP' setting turned on.  Because it's a simpiified mailer, it sometimes isn't accurate (but may get the mail out).  To correc this, you have must configure the mail server to use SMTP.  Information about this part of the Site Configuraion can be found here.

...

Some Module Content Doesn't Seem to Import or Known Valid Tables Are Listed as 'Unused'

This problem only occurs when using different web server OS's where one of them is Windows (using Apache).

...

No matter what url I enter, I'm taken back to the home page

If you enter a url for your site and are always taken back to the home page, this could be a normal situation.

...

My embedded links used to work, but since I moved the site, they are broken

If you moved your site out of the original subfolder, any embedded links will point to the old location.  Embedded links are relative to the root web folder, NOT the Exponent folder.  Therefore, if you move to a different subfolder or to the root folder, the links are not longer valid and must be edited and changed.

...

My site was working, but now I only get the "Site is Down" screen

If you had a running site and without placing it in 'Mainenance Mode', it displays that screen and you are unable to log in as an admin, it means that your database is down or not found.  You should notice the 'Database is currently Off-line!' message which is displayed if the database can not be reached.

...

The WYSIWYG editor dims out whenever I try to (fill in the blank)

There is a problem with the WYSIWYG editor (CKEditor) and Internet Explorer (IE) when there are many stylesheets in the theme.  IE has a known bug where it can only load a limited amount of style sheets.  Therefore, when you try to do an action in the editor which would open up a dialog box, it'll crash.  If you must use IE, then you'll need to turn on Minification to reduce the number of css stylesheet links being loaded (btw, this might speed up page loading slightly)

...

I just upgraded to a new version and my pages are not displayed correctly

If you are using a custom theme (one which did NOT ship with the Exponent package), it may be using some obsolete features which are no longer included in the system.

...

Unable to Log Out of site

On some servers (Ubuntu based?) you are taken to a login screen instead of being logged out of the site.  There are two fixes to this issue:

...

My site now appears to have two navigation menus at the top of the page

Most likely you used to have a menu and a 'breadcrumb' view and did not update the custom theme to conform with the changes in v2.0.9+.  You'll need to edit your theme template (index.php and subthemes) a replace the part which shows:

...

Twitter: Basic authentication is not supported

This error occurs because Twitter has deprecated its old way of 'doing business'.  The fix is to edit the twitter module configuration settings and them save them again without changes.

...

Calendar events don't appear with correct times

Your events used to display the correct time and now are hours off.  Even when you edit the event and update the times, it keeps going back to a different time.  This does not affect newly created events, only the old ones.

...

Can't Delete Files within File Manager

If you are (attempting) to delete a file within the file manager either by itself or using the 'Delete' Selected' button and the files are still there, it is likely that you have the PHP 'Magic Quotes' settings turned on.  This setting is only available in PHP versions 5.3 and earlier...and this symptom only occurs in Exponent v2.2.3patch4 and earlier.

...

Receiving a Virus Alert on Database Export

If you receive an alert that your system has detected a 'virus' when exporting the database, most likely there is something resembling a virus in one of the comments...and most likely an un-approved comment.  There are two solutions or work-arounds:

...

I attempt to sort the order of pages, but they don't appear where I want them

If this situation occurs, most likely, the 'upgrade script' to update the page `rank`s to the 2.0 format did not complete correctly.  This will be fixed in the v2.3.5 release.  Until then, you need to place the page one position HIGHER than wanted, then click on the refresh button or reload the page to see the updated hierarchy.

When attempting to display the RSS feed, I'm told the feed is not enabled

If you see the RSS/Podcast link and the RSS/Podcast feed was configured, but when attempting to view the feed, you are told it is not enabled, the module feed settings are no longer synchronized with the rss master table.  The fix is to 1) edit the module's configuration settings, and 2) save them again (no changes required).  This will update the rss master table.