Categories suddenly stopped working - HELP!

[Mark the Harp]

Hi

 

Just noticed this morning, the categories no longer work on my site (everything else, including specials, individual products etc, does).

 

The code has changed - my offline version still works.

 

Online code (not working)=

 

/catalog/index.php/cPath/45

 

Offline code (working)=

 

/catalog/index.php?cPath=45

 

Help! I imagine this fault is deeply buried somewhere within the OSC files. Any suggestions?

 

Have restored database, columnleft.php (where the categories are) and boxes/categories.php - but no change.

 

Mark

[Chris Dunning]

In your admin screen, turn off "search engine friendly urls."

 

There may be a way to still use that function, but I don't know it - turning it off will likely fix your problem.

[Mark the Harp]

Hi - thanks for the tip - I did in fact switch this to "true" yesterday (can't think why, but there you are!!). Have now switched this back to "false". This didn't immediately cure the problem.

 

I uploaded my local database to the online site

 

I did a restore online in admin

 

The site APPEARED to work.

 

To check, I did a "delete all offline content" and reloaded the site in the browser.

 

Now it doesn't work again!! Search-engine URLs are still "false", where I left them.

 

I've also downloaded the online version and compared with the local database (just to see if this has changed anything in the database) using WinMerge - but the two files are identical.

 

So I'm guessing there must be something else causing this behaviour, not to do with the database. The identical database works fine with my "local" version so I don't understand what's happened.

 

If one of the files is corrupted, the question is which one??!

 

Any further ideas, I'd be really grateful.

 

Mark

[Mark the Harp]

You are welcome to look by clicking on the "www." link below.

 

I tried just now and it looks fine, then it doesn't. I even got someone else to look over my shoulder as I thought I was imagining it.

 

It seems to work about 40% of the time.

 

Mark

[♥Vger]

By default your 'base href' is index.php, but you're using frames, the base frame being something like 'frameset.php'. Maybe this is the problem? Working with osCommerce in frames does seem to cause a lot of problems for people - judging by the posts to this forum.

 

Vger

[241]

it seems that if you click on an item then on a category it works, however if you use a side link then go to the catalog and click on a category it does not work

[Mark the Harp]

hi Vger and 241, thanks for taking the trouble to look.

 

I appreciate what you say about the frames, and I had intended (when I'd got a bit more au-fait with how the includes work) to incorporate the LH frame into the catalog pages in some way - just hadn't got round to it yet.

 

However, I'm still mystified as to why the site has only just started doing this. I'll investigate the "base href" thing but as I say it was working fine until just the other day.

 

I do know that should I decide to start taking online payments, frames will cause me problems, so I should just take a deep breath and get stuck into producing a frameless version!!

 

Mark

[Mark the Harp]

Hi again,

 

Think I've cracked it.

 

I recycled the cache of "categories" in admin / tools and that seems to have done the trick.

 

What does the cache do? Not sure but it SEEMS to have cured the problem. Maybe there was something left over from my experiements with the "search-engine friendly URLs" thing?

 

Thanks anyway all!!!

 

 

Mark