How to switch on Joomla debugging... resolving problems

As I mentioned in my previous post I managed to get to a situation where every time I loaded the home page it loaded a 404 error. Now trying to search the web for a solution for a Joomla 404 error, as you can imagine results in a couple of pages!!

So I spotted by chance the debug option in Site->Global Configuration->System



Now if you switch the debug system on and apply changes you will notice all further interaction with Joomla will result in a load of debug information being displayed. All well and good! So now this information is showing I reloaded my home page and the resulting 404 error includes some debug information - hurrah!



So finally, armed with this new information I could see prior to the JError->raiseError() call, a call to JComponentHelper->renderComponent() which I then Googled to find precisely why my page wasn't loading!! I'm well aware the error was a really silly mistake (a missing default menu) but had I not found this option I could have been looking around for a solution for quite a while.

How do you get rid of 404 error when viewing Joomla home page?

I'm still learning Joomla at the moment and have been making a lot of changes just to see how everything fits togther. I have though now managed to get to a position where when I try to preview the site or load the default home page I get a 404 page not found error - arrrrgggghhh.



Interestingly all the problem is the fact I do not have a default menu! Have a look at your main menu and double-check that you have a default item. Reseting solved the problem. I have since tried to replicate the problem by creating a new menu, making it the default and then trying to deleting it - and then in theory leaving me without a default menu but Joomla caught this and wouldn't allow the deletion, so I'm not sure how this happened!

Initially I tried to search for a resolution by looking for 404 errors but of course this results in millions of messages. I'm just going to post another entry relating to debuging which assisted the solution much more quickly.

How do you add items to the Joomla "Pill" menu?

I have just started playing with Joomla and as part of reading a new book on the subject wanted to add some menu items to the pill menu at the top of the screen. In truth, I had probably deleted some key elements while mucking around with the Joomla administration but none the less I had arrived at a situation where I couldn't add any items to this menu - ooops.



I have now solved it and as always with these things, it pretty straightforward:

Add a new Menu via the Menus-> Menu Manager. Add your names and description, and the key thing here is to fill in the module title with mod_mainmenu.




Now once done go to Extentions->Module Manager and edit the mod_mainmenu module. The key thing now is to change the position to 'user3'. Save changes and then start adding menu items to this new menu and you are away!