Thread

Hey EE support,

An urgent question: I’m running into a problem with Pages Module because I have a large number of custom URLs set up through Pages (over 800). I run into the limits of the way the custom URLs are stored in the MySQL database (i.e. the base64 serialized array in the site_pages field, in the site_table) because the length of the combined URLs goes over 65000 characters.

I’m just having a hard time keeping under that limit, which then causes my entire Pages structure to disappear when I enter just one more URL and cross 65000 characters and the field “restarts.” Argh.

So, I am wondering if it is possible to change the TEXT field to a BLOB field without any adverse affects? (And then have my fingers crossed that Pages is rewritten, down the road, to store things differently? 😊 )

My lack of understanding precisely what the differences are as outlined in http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/blob.html make me nervous about attempting to switch it without some sage advice. Hope to hear from you soon!

Thanks,

Rob

OK, I couldn’t wait. I decided to back up, then proceed with the damage that might ensue.

I opted in the end to change the field from TEXT to LONGTEXT and I seemingly can store as many URLs as I want now.

Please let me know if you can think of any “gotchas” that might be awaiting me as a result of doing this. Upgrading, maybe?

Thanks,

Rob

Hey Rob,

Thank you for posting your question here on the ExpressionEngine forums.

I do not see any problems aside from upgrading. When you do go to upgrade, that table will be set back to the default and any extra text in that field will be lost. You can of course prepare for that knowing this ahead of time. (Back up DB, go through upgrade, change back again, restore data)

Does that make sense?

Cheers,