database

  • Add more, than one e-mail address to the Virtuemart store - and send mails to all of them

    By default, in the VirtueMart 1.1.* Store Information settings you can add only one e-mail address in Contact Information box. All important mails - as new order notifications, for example, will be sent there. What if - for various reasons - you need to add more, than one e-mail address?

  • Adding spatial navigation and tabindex to your custom forms

    Having correctly implemented spatial navigation in your custom forms is more important, than ever these days. Unfortunately Joomla's core JForm does not support adding the required info easily (for example by creating an XML file which will output the correct code.

  • Build a New Joomla Website in less than 30min! | Joomla Installation

  • Can't log in with admin, no error messages

    This error comes back time-to-time, especially after a Joomla site is moved from one server to another. The symptoms are simple - but frightening. You try to login to the administrator interface as usual, with your well known credentials, and the login box is reloading whitouth any kind of error message and withouth letting you in. No errors in browser console, no error in the logs, and no errors even if you turn the error reporting to maximum or the Joomla debug on. You can try even the tricks described elsewhere in this site to change your admin password - that won't help.

    Why? Because the cause(s) - yeah, there can be multiple causes - are different from having bad credentials! Let's see what you can do about!

    ATTENTION: these tricks are qualified as core hacks, so be careful: backup, wear your lucky hat, keep your finger crossed - and take any other security measures before you proceed - you can ruin your site easily with a wrong move.

  • Change the default Joomla database prefix

    Every hacker in this world knows, that by default all Joomla database tables have the "jos_" prefix. Is that well known, than even automated defacing scripts are using this, and there are a lot of "tools" which are capable to automatically probing your site having this presumption built into them.

  • Change your database password while having no downtime

    Changing your database password is something you rarely need, but then you need it immediately, and with the lowest possible downtime. Why you should do that, in first time? Hm, there are many reasons/situations when you should consider changing your database access data ASAP:

    • You just got hacked
    • You have decided to end the business with your current developer, and you aren't sure that he's a trustable person
    • You have a good habit of changing all your passwords regularly
  • Did you upgraded to Joomla 1.0.13 and now you can't login?

    Do you are an early adopter and you upgraded to Joomla 1.0.13? And you have Community Builder, VirtueMart or SMF Bridge...and you cant' login right now, and/or your users are complaining about the same problem. We're sorry for you... Do you have a backup? Then is simple, restore the Joomla 1.0.12 files, overwriting the actual files with those from the official distribution package and restore the jos_users or similar (or at least the passwords column from that).

    Do you have backup, don't you? No??? Ouch... humm, then the job is a bit harder, but can be done!

    So, still you can do the file restore? Good, do it. Then read below!

  • How do you change the password for your Joomla database

    This is a two step process, and here I'm assuming that you are clever enough and you are hosting with a company that offers cPanel Wink. On other hosting environments the process might be slightly different, but the basics are the same.

  • Infinite loop detected in JError

    Today I have faced a strange, never seen before error. I have worked on recovering a server with couple of old Joomla sites after a major crash, when one of sites ceased to "fly" again, and showed up nothing else but a white screen with this text:

    Infinite loop detected in JError

  • JA K2 Filter - error 1062 when saving existing items

    JA's K2 Search and Filter add-on is a nice - and powerful tool. But has an annoying problem (at least in version 1.0.7): When one edit a K2 item which have extra fields, on save an ugly error 1062 database error is popping up. The component is working correctly, the modified date is saved, but the user  doing the update gets seriously confused.

  • Joomla display a blank page containing "Error" string

    ... and does this randomly, both in frontend and backend, sometimes showing the correct pages, and rarely an error message saying, that "table '#__session' is marked as crashed and last (automatic?) repair failed".

  • jtablesession::Store Failed - DB function failed with error number 1062

    It is an error which drive me crazy couple of times. It's easy to fix - but hard to detect why happening. I didn't see any good explanation which fits to each single situation I needed to handle it. There are couple of popular theories on what causes the "jtablesession::Store Failed - DB function failed with error" type of errors, but sincerely  I can not confirm any of them:

    • Flooding (Check your http access logs for access IP’s, and your PHP error logs). Solution: Try dropping the time out down temporally to a lower value, to see if the sessions clear or not.
    • SEF If your site has a lot of visitors table jos_session can accumulate substantial overhead. And if you use default SEF, some 404 pages can make some bots to enter into loop, and those bots gives you a huge session overhead.
    • Site statistics from within Joomla. Enabling statistics through your site configuration just adds extra MySQL queries and increases server loads.
  • Lost admin password - reloaded

    Did you manage to lost your password? Worst, maybe you lost the Super Administrator password? And for some reason you can't use the retrieve lost password functionality of Joomla...  If you use Joomla, if you forget your password you could just simply click on the "Forgot password" menu, and the new password will be sent to your email address. But what if you can't remember the exact e-mail address, or you have a local, development version and did not have the mailer handy... or your Internet connection is down? Or, worse - happened to me couple of times - you need to overtake a site originally developed by someone else?

  • MAX_JOIN_SIZE problems

    Recently in more (usually cheap) hosts more of my clients reported a strange error, wich showed up recently, withouth notice.

    The error message is like this:

    1104 The SELECT would examine more than MAX_JOIN_SIZE rows; check your WHERE and use SET SQL_BIG_SELECTS=1 or SET SQL_MAX_JOIN_SIZE=# if the SELECT is okay

    followed by the failing query.

  • My MySQL database does not support UTF-8! Do I have a problem?

    If you search for the title of this tip you will found lot of hits. Actually, my last search returned 6.6 millions of hits! Apparently lot of people are having with - or has fears on this subject. When I first published this tip, back in 2005, there was no such amount of answers/references, and I think, that this real flood of sites about this potential issue is not because lot of people would having problems, but because more and more people are getting into building interactive sites.

    So, do You have problems?

  • Never-ending database installation

    If you’ve been trying to install a quickstart package received after a template purchase, and the installation freezes at the database creation/restoration step you might have to make few changes in the server/PHP environment in order to fix the issue.

  • Running Joomla on a Windows server

    Yeah, you may say that nothing coming out from that Redmond-based factory does not qualify as LAMP environment, and Joomla is built yo be used on LAMP servers, am I right? Yes... and no. Why not let them to play with the best CMS around Yell.

    So, what a Windows aficionado should know if wants to run Joomla on his favorite server?

  • Server Forbidden 500 error when saving in Joomla Admin backend

    I had been driven crazy recently by couple of my sites suddenly beginning to exhibit a very annoying behavior. Sites, which worked flawlessly over past months/years began to die when I tried to save something, from new or edited articles, modules, menu items, contacts.

    Of course the first thing I done was to look to the error logs, then to enable debug and set the error reporting level to maximum. Nothing helpful.

  • SobiPro - adding a link to author profile in Community Builder

    When a registered user adds a new entry in your SobiPro powered business directory in your Joomla site you might want to add a link pointing back to his Community Builder profile. Sounds simple... but the powerful templating system of SobiPro might be cryptic even for advanced users. And you might not have a membership in SobiPro club - BTW, worth every penny!

    Here is one way you can do this!

  • Special quantity options for a VirtueMart Shopper Group

    A seemingly simple question caused serious headaches in past weeks. One of my clients who has an already seriously cross-hacked VirtueMart shop (SkinRich) asked me to make it possible, that a specific shopper group she had, the Distributors, namely, to be able to order products only in six-packs, making warehouse people's life much easier, and costs lower. The other users should have the default quantity options.

    After thinking a lot about how to solve the problem, I came out with a 4 line simple hack, which works perfectly for me.

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