[CMS] Widget Error after finally getting the forum working......

[Trevor Matthews]

Having just spent days getting my final forum version working I am just about ready to chuck the lot in the bin and stay with my current php forum.......

This is how it has been going for me.
Install forum. All works fine.
Install VBSEO, that's the forum stuffed.
Reinstall the forum.
Install VBSEO. Works OK.
Download the database and forum files as backup.
The forum is broken after doing that with Filezilla..
Reinstall everything again. All mods the lot. All now working.

Tonight I started on the Widgets and get this when I click on Configure on any of the Widgets that are there in the list.

Bottom left of the screen = Exclamation Mark on yellow triangle.
Clicking the exclamation mark brings up this text;

Message: Object doesn't support this action
vbulletin_overlay.js
Line: 11
Char: 6810
Code: 0
URI: http://www.television-magazine-forum...erlay.js?v=408


All I get is a black rectangle with the Apple style progress circle spinning away for ever.
Can anyone help before I just call it a day? Please.

[Lynne]

Disable all products except CMS (and including vbseo) and see if you still have this problem.

[Trevor Matthews]

Hi

Yes, I tried that as suggested but I still have the same problem.

[Trevor Matthews]

Oh this is getting silly now.

I just set up a new folder on the server.
Uploaded all the vbulletin files and ran the installer.
Installed OK.
went straight to Widgets and I have exactly the same problem.

This is on a totally different laptop to the one I used earlier.

So now I can't even install the basix forum.

What on earth is going on??????

[Lynne]

Do you allow people to use both www.yoursite.com and just yoursite.com? Make sure you log into your admin cp using the exact one you have entered into vboptions > site name/url

[Trevor Matthews]

I must be really dense here as I am totally lost now.....
The fresh install didn't work as the newer laptop didn't have Java installed. So the fresh install does now work.
I then redirected the web address to the seemingly faulty finished forum. Still the configure widget button comes up with the same error. I then redirected back to the fresh install to test the www bit.
I had no idea that not having the www bit made any difference. I then switched back to the faulty forum again and I now can't get back into the original forum as everytime I log in as a member or in the admincp I am immediately logged out.

Oh dear, is it just me that has these issues????????

[Trevor Matthews]

Right,closing the browser and restarting it solved the login issues.

I have now tried all the things suggested, disabling everything, changing the login bit, www or no www.
Still the same problem. Looks like that was last weekends work all wasted.

I went into the Maintenance section and ran the Suspect Files program.

There are a few that are not recognised as part of vbulletin as they are plugins.
But there are a couple of others like css.php, class_core.php,md5_sums_crawlability_vbseo.php and config.xml in the (VBSEO XML) folder that say the file does not contain the expected contents. Should I be concerned about that?

[Trevor Matthews]

Well, for want of something better to do I uploaded the latest vbulletin files to the server overwriting the existing files and then ran the update.php file. After a successful update I was confident the problem may be solved but no. I have exactly the same problem. I am not entirely sure how this can be if all the files are overwritten.

[Lynne]

Are you making sure to have different cookie prefixes (set in config.php) for each of your sites (or totally different login names)? You could be causing issues there.

I would suggest putting in a support ticket.

[Trevor Matthews]

Hi

Thanks for your thoughts. I have started from scratch again and have a working forum with VBSEO, I just need to add Cometchat and my plugins and I will be up and running again.

There are a couple off points raised by my problems.

Can Filezilla damage any of the files as it uploads them.

Is Winrar the best thing to use to unzip the various archives.

Is it acceptable/risky/OK to edit any files on the remote server and then just select save to upload the changed file back to the server? Or should I download it to the desktop, edit and then upload??

I spent 2 hours trying to get onto my web-site. IE8 just said connecting and that was all.
I checked and double checked the .htaccess file and it was OK.
In deperation I called oneandone.
The operator said take a look at your .htaccess file it is full of rubbish!!!
I said it isn't I have checked it a dozen times.
She asked what I used to check it and I said wordpad as I thought that was the correct one to use for files on the server with text in. I checked it with notepad and the .htaccess files had rubbish in it, edited and saved and I then had access to to web-site.........

So what editor should be used?? Is there a definitive rule on this subject..

I would love to save someone else from the grief I have gone through.

[Trevor Hannant]

FTP software can occasionally corrupt files on download/upload but it's not as common now.

Windows XP users and onwards should be able to extract ZIP files within windows itself without need for additional software. However, I've used WinRAR for years without any issues.

I regularly edit files on my server when testing using Dreamweaver and have had no ill-effects from it. There is no harm in downloading the file, editing it offline then re-uploading though...

For .htaccess I use Notepad. Again, no problems with this. Wordpad I've seen described as a poor man's Word/Works. It can add various MS formatting to the code

[Trevor Matthews]

Thanks Trevor

Perhaps I have just been unlucky.
So for other text files that Notepad can't display properly I should use Word?

[Lynne]

You need to use just a plain text editor. Don't use anything like Word because it will add extra characters into the file (that you can't see in Word, but can in notepad).

[Trevor Matthews]

Many thanks.

Perhaps this has been the root of all my troubles.