core hack

  • 500 Internal Error when saving an article - reloaded

    After solving couple of times the "500 Internal Server Error" problem as described in a previous post, I received another complaint from one of my clients I host:

    "I also cannot save the articles and here is the error I got
    500 - An error has occurred!"

    Easy cake - I was thinking, but after checking his account, discovered, that all settings described on that article (namely the collation settings in database) where correct.

  • 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?

  • Auto publish new content in frontpage

    If you run a Joomla site where you want the new content items by default to be published on the frontpage, you're out of luck, this is something Joomla don't let you set in some config file. In the normal Joomla work-flow the Publisher (or someone ranked higher) will decide/need to decide if and when put a given content item in the frontpage. You may need this (or you're bored already needing to go back again and again in editing mode just to click on that select box...).

  • Bypass the VirtueMart's built in currency converter

    Recently one of my clients needed an interesting feature: to have different, un-related prices for the products in his shop for each "currencies" he wanted to use. The quote signs aren't by mistake there, one of his "currencies" was for example Payments in USD from China... Interesting currency, what you think?

    At the first the problem seemed to be simple: since the existing VM framework let you define any kind of extra currencies, and also let you enter prices for products in all of your currencies, the logical step was to simply switch off the currency converter plugin, as was possible in VirtueMart 1.1.9 and earlier versions.

    But there is the first catch - this is no more possible.

  • Caching reloaded

    This tip is only for Joomla 1.0! For newer versions the handling of bandwidth is more cleverly solved, so read on only if you still use Joomla 1.0.

  • 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.

  • Deprecated: Function eregi() is deprecated in...

    Do you have some old Joomla site (pre Joomla 1.5.6)? then is very likely you will got - or already have - a site running only halfway, full of errors saying

    Deprecated: Function eregi() is deprecated in somecomponent...

    or

    Warning: Parameter 3 to showItem() expected to be a reference, value given in /home/someaccount/www/www/joomla/includes/Cache/Lite/Function.php on line 100

     

    Yeah, you might allready guessed it, the PHP 4.* end of life-cycle is wreaking havoc in Joomla 1.0 sites and some early Joomla 1.5 implementations - or even newer sites, having badly coded third party extensions installed.

  • Disable the user name "admin"

    In various blog posts, security bulletins, etc. you can read, that you need get rid of the default "admin" user with Super Administrator privileges (and with the default UserID of 62 or 42 - depending on Joomla version) to prebent hackers using the well known username and user ID to start dictionary attacks or carry out successful SQL injection attacks against your site, but how? If you go to Joomla user manager, and want to simply delete it, you can't. More, you can't even disable it! WTF...
    Hey, it's not that complicated!
    Let me show you how can you do it in a simple - and fool-proof way!

  • Enhanced readmore links

    The default Joomla "Read More..." link is fine... but as always is room for improvement. Especially SEO wise, but not only. How about to have a more descriptive and compelling "Read more..." link, complete with the article title for example? Ye-ye-ye, you can right now use sh404SEF for all Joomla flavors, but what if you don't have it?

  • Help! I'm Locked Out Of My Site!

    Beginning with Joomla 1.6 it's possible to lock anyone out of the back end of the website — including Super Users with Admin permissions — by setting the Site Admin permission to Deny. And this is something you can do accidentally against yourself by playing with the permissions without knowing how exactly these settings are working. That can have unpleasant side effects especially at the Super User group or at the Manager or Administrator group level. If Manager or Administrator is set to Deny, the Super User would inherit Deny from these groups, even if the Super User group is set to Allow.

  • Home menu problem with Joom!Fish and sh404SEF

    If you use Joom!Fish to create a multi-language Joomla site and use sh404SEF to manage your SEF URL's you might have seen this problem:

    When you are in one non-default language and click on the Home menu item (the default menu item, which should lead you to the default site page on that language) you are arriving on the default home page - in the default language, and not the default page in your active language!

  • How to remove Joomla copyright info

    Joomla is a great piece of software, and the developers are deserved allready full support for keeping it evolving. One of the easy methods are to keep those Powered by Joomla texts and messages in place, and visible. But what if - with good reasons - you want to get rid of those? For example to make less obvious for Joomla-hackers to identify your site as a possible next target - to name only one of possible multiple reasons. (Read also this article about how to remove the Generated by Joomla! tag!) Or you may want to keep it, but a bit tweaked, to reflect better your contribution to that site of yours. The same questions are arising: where that footers are coming from?

  • How to remove the Joomla generator tag

    You use Joomla? Huh... Me too... Did you know, that by this alone you became a potential target for some bad guys out there?

    Like it or not, there are some nerds who are "specialized" themselves in hacking and cracking Joomla sites.

    Scared? Not need too, just be cautious and take some countermeasures. What you can do about?

  • How to turn on the "?tp=1" trick in Joomla 1.7+?

    In a previous tip I enumerated couple of methods on how you can make visible the template positions in Joomla 1.7+.

    But there seems to be at least two different problems for some users.

  • 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

  • Insert a plugin (or a module) anywhere

    You might need to use a plugin's output in a component, or to insert a module in a page outputted by an arbitrary component. I mean ANY plugin which has it's own output in ANY Joomla component you like.

    I know, there are couple of ready-made solutions, but all of these are specific to a given component(s) and some components have their own plugins to do that.

  • JFolder::create: Could not create directory

    The full error looks like this:

    JFolder::create: Could not create directory
    Warning! Failed to move file.

    You might see this nagging error every once you install something to your Joomla site. Apparently everything working, but - as any errors you see - should alert you: something isn't right with your site, and even if apparently everything works, you might have unexpected problems later!

  • 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?

  • Menu items keep reordering after migration

    Recently - once again - I faced a very annoying problem: after migrating a Joomla site from Joomla 1.5 to Joomla 1.7 - and later to Joomla 2.5 - time-to-time the menu ordering switched back to the essentially wrong ordering resulted from migration process. First time I thought I am doing something wrong, and when my client cried about, I reordered a menu again and again. I have to fight with this problem too many times until I found the source of error and an easy fix.

  • MooTools problems after FireFox update to version 18

    Lately many of Joomla 1.5 site owners have been experiencing weird Java script  errors when tried to use their site with FireFox browser. Receiving lots of request almost simultaneously the first reaction was that some software update caused the problem.

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