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#2690 – Multi-language site with broken links in one language only

Posted in ‘sh404SEF’

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Friday, 09 September 2016 18:57 UTC

brunsona

One of our multi-language sites has an issue accepting external links in only one language.

An external link to any French page on the site displays a 404 error page with a base href including an Italian language code and a German document title.

Additionally, when you are viewing the French version of the site and click the French flag in the language selector, the site displays the same error page with an Italian language code and a German document title.

None of the other 10 languages installed on the site do this.

In trying to track down the issue, we've noticed that the base href shifts when any language flag is clicked while viewing the site in that language.

For instance, site.com/nl/home-dut.html is displayed when first clicking on the Dutch language flag. A second click on the Dutch flag and the base href changes to site.com/nl/. Additional clicks do not change the base href but clicking on any other flag starts the cycle again.

Except for French which displays the error page on the second click and sends you to a 404 error page with an Italian language code and a German page in the base href.

We could live with the double-click flag issue except for the issue with external links to French pages on this site creating 404 errors.

I've turned off Enable URL optimization in sh404SEF and the issue disappears. But all of our links change. We have many links from external sites pointing to our content so not running sh404SEF is not an option.

I've installed the latest version of sh404SEF, purged SEF urls several times, matched all configuration screens between this site and a similar multi-language site that does not shift base href, purged SEF urls again - no joy.

I've checked the menus and pages through KMFasTrans (also used on all our sites) and everything looks perfect. All other languages on this site accept external links with no issue except for French.

I've cleared cache on the site and in my browser after every few rounds of changes. No joy.

Hopefully this is an issue that's been resolved and you can point me in the right direction.

Thanks!
-a-

Monday, 12 September 2016 07:45 UTC

wb_weeblr

Hi

1 - What do you call an "external" link? external normally means "to another site". Is it so? or are you talking about the "External URL" as a Joomla menu item option?

2 - If using the External URL option, I would need to review the settings used there.

3 - sh404SEF doesn't create the base tag, it's handled by Joomla (so there exist some system plugin to change it - which are actually wrong and cause a wrong base tag to be created)

4 - We cannot speak in generic terms, please provide full URL of the site, and actual URLs causing issues. Best is probably to provide us with superadmin credentials to your website. You can create a temporary account, and delete it afterwards, but it must have superuser level.

Thanks and regards

Tuesday, 13 September 2016 13:59 UTC

brunsona

Thank you for your prompt reply.

1 - my mistake. The issue isn't with external links going to another site. It's links from other sites or emails pointing to pages on this site.

2 - see #1

3 - interesting information. I checked System - SEF and it seem okay, nothing to configure but it's published. It's strange that it's only the French version of the site that has the 404 errors but all languages keep shifting the base tag.

4 - okay
- the full url of the site is http://xxxx.com
- to see the error go to http://xxxx.com/fr/home-frn.html then click on the Home menu item
- I created a temporary super user account for you on the site with the email address of xxxx - let me know if I should use another email address.

Thank you, again, for your support.
-a-

Tuesday, 13 September 2016 14:02 UTC

brunsona

I just got a system reply that the email address I used was not viable and the registration email was rejected.

You can email me at xxxx with your preferred email address for the super user account.
Thanks.
-a-

Tuesday, 13 September 2016 14:04 UTC

wb_weeblr

Hi

There seems something wrong in the general setup of the site. The language switcher shows a link such as http://xxxx.com/fr/home-frn.html for the french root page, and that's not correct.
The correct link there should http://xxxx.com/fr/

This suggests:

1 - incorrect language/menu items setup
2 - URLs were not purged after the initial setup of the site, and there are some bad URLs left

Re: creation of a super user: please do not use any email address. Best is to use [email protected]. Setup the username and the password, and communicate them to me here, there is no need for receiving email (after nearly 10 years of doing this, we have plenty of accounts on many sites that users forgot to delete, and receive a lot of unwanted mails because of that.).

Rgds

Tuesday, 13 September 2016 14:05 UTC

wb_weeblr

Hi again,

Of course, you need to manually validate that user, so that it doesn't need the email validation process.

Rgds

Tuesday, 13 September 2016 14:17 UTC

brunsona

user name = xxxx
password = xxxx
http://xxxx.com/administrator

I tested the login - all good. Also, I rebuilt the French menus, purged sh404SEF URL's, deleted site and admin cache. The issue is still there.

Let me know if you need anything else,
-a-

Tuesday, 13 September 2016 14:52 UTC

wb_weeblr

Hi

Ok, so the problem was that all those "homepages" were associated. I deleted all the associations for:

- the home pages menu items
- the article themselves

then purged URLs and it looks better now.

Having associations on the various home pages menu items and articles can make the joomla language filter a bit crazy and it's not required anyway, because the root pages in each languages are special pages, that joomla already know how to associates.

Rgds

Tuesday, 13 September 2016 15:39 UTC

brunsona

Thank you, that cleared up the shifting base tag.
I'm still getting the 404 error on the French home page - it now happens all the time

http://xxxx.com/fr/

I cleared cache, cleared 404s, cleared SEFs - no change
I duplicated the French home menu item and made it default - no change

Where is the http://xxxx.com/it/avatartimes8-ger.html redirect for the French home page coming from?

-a-

Tuesday, 13 September 2016 16:06 UTC

wb_weeblr

Hi

This is totally not similar to the rest. There is a 301 redirect from /fr to this page /it/avatartimes8-ger.html.
It's caused by the shURL system. It seems there is a fr shorturl stuck in the system, but it doesn't show in the shURL list for some reason.

I don't know what's the history of the site, but there was something strange on it: when I installed the latest development version (to be sure no known bug was there), I had an error and found that you still had on it the sh404SEF Custom content category, and an old __404__ article.
Those should have been deleted by past updates, we don't use them any longer, and for a long time.
Likewise, the issue of a shURL colliding with a language code, as in your case, was solved a long time ago, and should not be a problem.

So I manually deleted the sh404SEF Custom content category and the old __404__ article, which I think were blocking the install process before it cleaned the incorrect shURL, and then simply install again the current version, and that seems to fix it.

So there was something in the past, during one of sh404SEF installation, update or what not, that didn't go well.

Rgds

Tuesday, 13 September 2016 17:38 UTC

brunsona

Wow, thank you so much for handling this. I would have never figured all that out.
Please mark this topic as completed.
-a-

Wednesday, 14 September 2016 08:53 UTC

wb_weeblr

Hi

Thanks very much. Closing this ticket now, feel free to open a new one as needed. If you do so, please mention this ticket number in the new one.

If you created any superadmin account for us, be sure to delete or block it now to avoid unnecessary risk in the future.

Be sure to also check out wbAMP, our new Accelerated Mobiles pages plugin for Joomla - the next big thing is SEO, direct from Google themselves!

Rgds

This ticket is closed, therefore read-only. You can no longer reply to it. If you need to provide more information, please open a new ticket and mention this ticket's number.