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Get 404 when trying to access forum

BD Bruce Dienes
Bruce Dienes
Member
Member since Aug 2013
51 posts
Aug 13, 2015 · 8:26 pm · Edited

I have simple-press 5.5.8 set up on a multi-site WP currently using 4.2.3. It is on a Linux Slackware server. I’m accessing on a Win 8.1 machine using Firefox or IE, latest versions. I have the latest Themes for SP, and switching them does not help.

Simple-Press does not know how to deal with directory-based multi-sites, and so it tries to place files in non-existent directories. I have to rename all the links in Integration/StorageLocations and manually place appropriate files. I’m wondering if that is part of the problem.

There are multiple issues with this installation, but here are some highlights:

  • One subsite will show the groups, but clicking on a forum in that group gives a 404
  • One subsite just shows a totally blank screen when I click on the link to the forum.
    • I have tried refreshing the permalinks and storage locations. I have tried deleting the forum and group and recreating them. No difference.
  • Some subsites have forums that display glyphs when composing a post, and others just show empty squares.

I can’t just delete the whole thing and re-install as there are a couple of subsites with extensive posts.

  1. Question: can I uninstall Simple-Press from one sub-site without triggering an uninstall across the whole multi-site? If so I could re-install it on that sub-site and see what happens.
  2. Question: If I do a complete re-install, is there anyway to retrieve the forum structure and messages and attachments, or are they all lost forever?
  3. Question: Are there any SP plugins that might be causing irregularities?

Help!

3 Answers

New Answer
MP Mr Papa
Mr Papa
Member
Member since Dec 2006
19,448 posts
Aug 13, 2015 · 9:04 pm

odd… we have more than a few multisite users no reports…  and my multisite test site is set up for directories (in fact its required for wamp)… have to admit, have not done a lot of testing of late…

what is different/wrong about the directories?  is it the use of blogs.dir?   that used to be required but is now no longer used despite existing installs still using it..  that fact has kept us from upgrading to handle the now gone blogs.dir slower than we probably should be..  changing those storage locations around and moving stuff is precisely why its there – for you to customize how you want…  so no issue there, assuming you created and got good indicators on the storage location panel…

did you do a network install or each site individually?

a bit confused.. you say you have extensive posts..so this has been working, but suddenly stopped?

some answers…

1 – by definition each sub site is a unique independent install.. there is no data shared between them…  so you can uninstall (or install) individually…   I would use caution with the main site though as its where you will have your enabled themes, plugins and potentially other shared files (not data)…

2 – if you do an uninstall, your data will be lost…

3 – no, to best of our knowledge, all our plugins work fine with multisite… 

we dont have as tight an integration with multisite as we would like, but no known issues…  for example, we would like to be able to pull data from the subsites and show it on the main site…

BD Bruce Dienes
Bruce Dienes
Member
Member since Aug 2013
51 posts
Aug 17, 2015 · 10:59 am

My main question is where SP is looking for files, particularly the file that gives the glyphs.

When I add a SP forum to a subsite, SP still thinks that blogs.dir exists, despite the fact that WP hasn’t used that format for years. So I have to manually set the directories and try to make sure that the relevant files are copied into them. I am wondering if there are files that have not been moved to the required directories. Do you have a list of which files need to be in which directory? It may just be that there are files missing from individual installs, which may be why some subsites work fine and others are glitchy and others don’t work at all.

YS Yellow Swordfish
Yellow Swordfish
Member
Member since Nov 2008
16,437 posts
Aug 17, 2015 · 11:37 am

Perhaps we can take it in small chunks initially. So – you specifically ask about glyphs. I assume from this that you are referring to the TinyMCE Editor button glyphs. And if so then you should find them  (by default this is) at /sp-resources/plugins/tinymce-richtext/resources/skins/SPlighgray/fonts/ with the CSS being in the SPlightgray folder itself.

As Steve mentioned above the problem with the old blogs_dir location is that we still, from time to time, get MS sites that have this construct bit I do think it is probably time we now cut the cord to this and went with the new. This kind of change is often hard to support well – ie., you can’t keep everyone happy all of the time!

What about your browser console. That should be able to report exacr]tly what urls are triggering the 404s which might prove useful data.