Category blog layout has stopped working on some pages

Hi,

I've just noticed that some of my category blog layouts are not working any more on my website.

Compare these two:

http://www.worldandmedia.com/index.php? ... log&id=917
http://www.worldandmedia.com/index.php? ... log&id=967

Both have exactly the same settings within mainmenu but only the second one works as before...

Please help.

Thanks!

Frank

PS. I wrote that several hours before I posted. In the meantime, the first link above mysteriously started working properly but now it isn't again. I have made no changes. This is another one that isn't displaying as as a blog:

worldandmedia.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=964

I can't open any link.

Hi Mike,

It's

http://worldandmedia.com/index.php?opti ... log&id=964

(or http://worldandmedia.com/global)

It's one of several that should be displaying as a category blog. I don't know if it's something to do with the external RSS feeds.

Frank

Still the same. But it is not only my problem because I asked my friends and they couldn't open it too.

Hi Mike,

Thanks for trying! It seems you've been blocked by MightyDefender. Perhaps it's over-cautious but it might be something to do with your IP being on a few blacklists (see mxtoolbox.com). Is it a shared IP? What IP did your friends use?

Thanks,

Frank

I can see the link fine however i cannot see category blog layout instead it is category list layout. Can you check "global" menu item and see if it is type set to category blog layout of category list layout..

I can see the link fine however i cannot see category blog layout instead it is category list layout. Can you check "global" menu item and see if it is type set to category blog layout of category list layout..

Hi Norman,

That's the problem. It's set as blog and previously displayed as blog but is now displaying as list.

It's not the RSS feeds that are stopping the blog from displaying properly. I removed them here but with no joy:

http://www.worldandmedia.com/south-asia

Could it be AceSef?

Have you tried disabling any cache plugins , or have you tried cleaning joomla cache...

Have you tried disabling any cache plugins , or have you tried cleaning joomla cache...

Thanks Norman! I cleared the cache in AceSEF and it worked. (I also turned ON the cache in the main Joomla! configuration but I don't suppose that had anything to do with it.)

Do you have any idea why it happened/how I might prevent it happening again?

Thanks again,

Frank

I guess you have tried category list layout before which then that link got cached and then you changed it to category blog layout but cache never renewed or expired hence every time you clicked on the link it still showed category list layout. Perhaps you can play around with cache time...

Main rule is not to use any cache until you are satisfied with your design and layout then comes cache and speed up tweaks...

I guess you have tried category list layout before which then that link got cached...

Hi Norman,

Thanks for the suggestion. I don't think that's it. They've been category blogs for as long as I can remember. Having said that, it seems that the newer ones (still many months old) acted differently to the older ones.

Unfortunately, my last post was sent too soon: clearing the cache only solved the problem temporarily. I contacted customer support, who suggested disabling any SEF.

So I disabled AceSEF temporarily, and that seemed to work. I would rather keep on using AceSEF, though. However, re-enabling it brought the problem back.

The problem may have arisen when I recently enabled the permanent cache, rather than the instant cache, in AceSEF. I did that to solve another problem I had been having. I had been receiving this and similar error messages: Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 67108864 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 226831 bytes) in /home/worlda8/public_html/plugins/system/jcomments.php on line 61.

I experimented with the AceSEF permanent cache settings this evening. They seem to have some bearing on the problem. But every time I appeared to be making some progress, the problem reappeared.

I then looked at duplicate URLs. It looks like the same SEF has been created for, e.g.

• index.php?option=com_content&Itemid=135&id=909&layout=blog&view=category
  
• index.php?option=com_content&Itemid=135&id=909&view=category

By checking the first one as the one to be used and the other not be, the problem for that URL seems to have been fixed.

However, in other cases (older blogs), that only fixed the problem temporarily. In those cases, there are several real URLs for one SEF URL, such as

• index.php?option=com_content&Itemid=264&id=964&layout=blog&view=category
  
• index.php?option=com_content&Itemid=264&id=964&layout=default&view=category
  
• etc

I don't know if there is any way of changing the default layout to blog...

If I mark the first one above as the one to be used and clear the cache of the second one as well as marking it not be used (I even tried unpublished), that works temporarily until the cache for the second one is turned back on, which seems to be happening automatically.

So, I've just disabled the AceSEF permanent cache for SEF URLs and that seems to have worked, in combination with the above, for now!

Have you tried deleting all the urls in AceSEF , basically deleting all the links AceSEF created and start again from zero to see how it goes...

Have you tried deleting all the urls in AceSEF , basically deleting all the links AceSEF created and start again from zero to see how it goes...

HI Norman,

Belated thanks for this. I fixed the problem. It took a while longer to sort out - I contacted Piotr (thanks Piotr!) in technical support - and then I contacted JoomAce (they make AceSEF).

I can't quite remember what worked (I may have used both their suggestions) but I think it was to do with duplicate URLs and/or the cache. I probably deleted or edited the duplicate URLs in AceSEF, changed the duplicate URLs settings (probably referencing the link below), and cleared the cache.

Denis at JoomAce said:

...Of course that you should clean the cache of your site and browser after makins such changes.

As for the duplicated SEF URLs issue, check the following article plz:
http://www.joomace.net/support/docs/ace ... cated-urls

That was In response to my query, which summarises the steps I took:

Hi,

I have been having a number of serious problems with AceSEF in the last few weeks.

I started getting blank pages with their messages along the following lines:
Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 67108864 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 226831 bytes) in /home/worlda8/public_html/plugins/system/jcomments.php on line 61.

I finally managed to get rid of the error messages when I enabled the permanent cache, rather than the instant cache, in AceSEF.

However, I then started to get other errors. Most of my category blogs stopped displaying correctly and were instead displaying as category lists.

I cleared the cache in AceSEF and that worked but only temporarily.

I then disabled AceSEF temporarily. However, re-enabling it brought the problem back.

When I looked at the AceSEF URLs, I found that a number of real URLs were mapping to the same URL.

...

The problem seems to be with the real URLs that don't include "&layout=blog". "Default" appears to be something other than "blog". I don't know if/how it's possible to change that.

I tried to change which real URLs are published or used but the fixes were only temporary.

I then tried disabling the AceSEF permanent cache for SEF URLs but that was unsatisfactory. (If I remember correctly, it broke a lot of the links in my menu system.)

I then installed and ran cache cleaner and cleared the cache in my browser. That seemed to work very well but it deleted any record of SEF URLs for archived events. I recreated them by un-archiving them, republishing them, and then archiving them again.

I had no problems for a day or two but now I've discovered that some of my blogs are displaying as lists again!

Can you help please?

Thanks!

I am glad to know it is working now. See you around...