Thread

Today, I’m not able to access either of the two forums I have set up in my MSM install of EE. When accessing the correct URLs for the forums, EE displays the site’s index page instead. The problem is intermittent.

I don’t know where to begin troubleshooting this.

Here is some info about my EE install:

ExpressionEngine v2.1.3, Build: 20101220
Discussion Forum Module   3.1.2
Most recent version of MSM files are installed

MSM contains four web sites. All appear to be configured correctly and all templates I’ve built correctly resolve in a browser.

Under “Add-Ons > Modules > Discussion Forum” I have 2 forums configured: “Forums” and “Monkey Hustle”

The Forum URLs are:
http://www.fenderson.net/index.php/forums/
http://www.monkeyhustle.com/index.php/forums/

Forum triggering word is set to “forums”.

I’ve set debugging to 1 in my config file but see no errors when I try to access the forum URLs.

Please let me know what other info you need to assist.

Also, this may or may not be related but when clicking on the “View all posts by this member” link that appears on the member’s profile page, I get the following error:

http://www.monkeyhustle.com/index.php?ACT=18&mbr=14

A PHP Error was encountered
Severity: Notice
Message: Undefined index: meta
Filename: search/mod.search.php
Line Number: 377

EDIT: When turning on template debugging, I noticed this:
(0.009478) Showing index. Template not found: forums

Am I reading this right? EE is looking for a (non-existent) forums template group?

Hi Tripp,

How long have the forums been up before this issue happened?  Can you be a little more specific about how intermittent is this problem?  Also could you please provide us with a list of which third party add-ons, if any, are installed.

There could be a few things going on here. Lets see what we can narrow it down to.  The forums template group issue could indicate that some of the theme files are missing.  To fix this: delete the ./themes/forum_themes folder and all of it’s content.  Then re-upload the forum_themes folder into your ./themes directory on your EE install.

Next we need to check that the correct sites are selected for each forum. 
Go to Add-Ons > Modules.
Click the “Discussion Forum” link to enter the “Forum Board Home” 
Click the “Edit Forum Boards”
For Each of your two forums you need to do the following steps:
Click “Edit Board”
Under the “General Settings” tab you should see a “Site for Forum” drop down list.
Can you confirm that each of your two forums have the appropriate sites attached to them?

Lets nail down the forum problem and then tackle the “view posts issue” after we get the forums up and running

SIncerely,
Barry Cogan

They were installed on Aug, 23, 2010. For the most part, the forums have sat dormant as a friend and I were simply planning their structure and tossing in a few test posts here and there. It’s not an active forum, meaning I don’t visit daily. Sorry to be dodgy but I can’t be more specific about the intermittent nature. Sometimes I can get to them, sometimes I can’t. Today, I can’t.

Solspace’s Tag module is the only third-party add-on installed.

I’ll update the themes files per your note now as well as check that the correct sites are selected for each forum. I’ll be back in touch shortly.

Hi Tripp,

Can you please also let us know whether you are running the forums through the regular template parser (third down) or not.

Thank you.

Nope. It’s a standard, vanilla install. The only change I made to the forums were to swap out the logo and add Google Analytics code to the footer.

Updating the /themes now. brb

OK-

I backed up my current ./themes/forum_themes files and then installed a fresh copy per the directions here: http://ellislab.com/expressionengine/user-guide/modules/forum/forum_update.html

I was unable to access the monkeyhustle forum following the update. I didn’t try (but should have) to access the fenderson.net forums because I have them disabled at the moment.

As noted, I have 2 forums set up. One for fenderson.net and one for monkeyhustle.com.

In reviewing the forum board preferences per your request, I can confirm that each of my two forums have the appropriate sites attached to them (by looking at the sites in the Site for Forum dropdown menu).

The only discrepancy between the two are:

Enable Forum Board is set to Yes for monkeyhustle.com
Enable Forum Board is set to No for fenderson.net

These are my preferred settings at this time (monkeyhustle active, fenderson.net inactive).

On a whim, I set the value to Yes for fenderson.net and as a result, I could now access both forums. Following this, I reset Enable Forum Board to No for fenderson.net and I can still access the monkeyhustle forums.

Lastly, I noticed in the debugging info at the bottom of the monkeyhustle forums, in the config variables section, the value for base_url is set to http://www.fenderson.net/. No idea if that is related to this issue though.

tl;dr: I can now access my forums but I’m still lost.

EDIT: And the “view posts issue” seems to have resolved as well.

Which domain is the initial domain, and which is the MSM domain?

There are 4 domains set up in the MSM:

1. fenderson.net (primary, has a forum set up, forum is disabled)
2. fenderson.org
3. trippfenderson.com
4. monkeyhustle.com (has a forum set up, forum is enabled)

Also, I made a mistake in my reply on 5-Jan. The “view posts issue” has not been resolved.

The “View all posts by this member” link works if I click it from the forums member page but not the main member page.

In other words,

This path works: http://www.monkeyhustle.com/index.php/forums/member/14/ to the “View all posts by this member” (http://www.monkeyhustle.com/index.php/forums/member_search/14/)

This path does not: http://www.monkeyhustle.com/index.php/member/14 to the “View all posts by this member” (http://www.monkeyhustle.com/index.php?ACT=18&mbr=14)

I realize Barry said we’d address this issue later but I wanted to make note of my error.

Are you using htaccess or mod_rewrite in any way? Also, have you contacted your host? Intermittent issues are often server-related.

Yes I’m using .htaccess but only to turn off ETags, set cache times on various file types, and compress a few things with DEFLATE. There’s nothing in there that would cause this issue.

And no I have not contacted EngineHosting. What would you recommend that I tell them?

In other words,

This path works ...
This path does not ...

I am getting the same result for both, namely “You are not allowed to view member profiles.”

And no I have not contacted EngineHosting. What would you recommend that I tell them?

Your forum URL was working for me, but you said it was intermittent. The next time it happens take note of the date and time and ask them about any issue they might be seeing in the logs.

I reported the error in my original post. A copy is provided below.

I can modify permissions to allow you to view member profiles if that helps to resolve this issue. Is that you would like me to do?

A PHP Error was encountered
Severity: Notice
Message: Undefined index: meta
Filename: search/mod.search.php
Line Number: 377

Are you as the SuperAdmin having these issues, or is it with logged in members?

Both SuperAdmin and Members receive the same error.