#3470 – Menu item/page that is a "Category List" will not display gives 500 eror

 Hi!

I have a new site that I was hoping to make live this weekend. I installed sh404sef today and all the menu items work except for one that is a "Category List" page. That menu link will not resolve and returns the following,

www.xxxxxxxxx.com is currently unable to handle this request.

HTTP ERROR 500

All the other pages/links are single articles and resolve correctly. Without sh404sef the page works fine.

Site Info:
Joomla 3.6.5
Custom template created with Artisteer.
New install of most current sh404sef

Development site (the one giving me a problem): http://www.xxxx.com/_Final/ (Joomla 3.6.5)
Problematic menu item is: "Restaurant Profiles"

Current active site to be replaced by the above site: http://www.xxxx.com (Joomla 1.5.x)

I have spent the last 5 hours trying to solve this problem -- make a change in sh404sef config setting > purge URL's > see if problem was fixed > undo change > purge URL's > change a different setting > purge URL's, etc, etc, etc...

Disclaimer - I am not the most technically literate person so I'm guessing the issue is some setting that I've missed or misunderstood. I feel like I have changed every item at one point or another but nothing seems to have worked.

Please let me know if any additional information is need. I am also happy to provide backend access info if necessary.

Thank you!

Thank you.

I will give your recommendation a try and report back what I discover.

OK, here is what I found.

Fatal error: Maximum execution time of 30 seconds exceeded in /home/xxxxxx/public_html/_yyyyyy/plugins/content/emailcloak/emailcloak.php on line 489

I disabled the emailcloak plugin and the problem page now displays!

I have no clue why the emailcloack plugin would cause an issue on a "Category List" page but I'll continue my search for an answer to this issue as we do want specific email addresses to appear on our site but we also want them to be cloaked from harvesters.

I learned some new things and thank you for your help!

Currently, I get a 403 - Forbidden error when trying to access your site.

Our site used to receive a lot of overseas bot traffic so we block a ton of non-US traffic in order to minimize our bandwidth usage .

I've removed the IP blocks so please feel free to try to visit the links now.

Have you tested if the same happen when you disable sh404SEF but still use Joomla SEF?

I was using the basic Joomla SEO settings until purchasing sh404sef last week. Once sh404sef was installed, that's when I noticed the issue. But to be honest, I had not looked at that particular page for at least a month and have added a few additional extensions since then.

As a test, I just disabled all the sh404sef components & plugins and found that the problem page still will not load with the emailcloak plugin enabled. On a hunch I went to Extensions > Manage and searched for "email". I found that there were actually 2 plugins listed, "System - Regular Labs - Email Protector" & "Content - Email Cloaking".

I found that if I disabled one or the other cloaker the page will load. It's when they are both enable at once that the problem occurs. I don't remember if I intentionally added "Regular Labs - Email Protector" as an extension or whether it came as part of another extension package but for now I'll keep only one of email cloakers enabled.

Thanks again for your help!

Looks like our site may not be the only one where "Email Protector" may have caused issues.

https://www.regularlabs.com/forum/emailprotector/42354-some-category-pages-not-working-any-more-with-regular-labs-email-protector

Now, I'm not calling them out as having a faulty product. I'm just pointing out that with the huge number of variables that come together when putting together a website -- the OS and all it's associated components, the script itself, the theme, the extensions, etc, etc, etc... -- occasionally there can be specific unforeseen and unexpected issues for a very few users.

OK, I'll contact RegularLabs and ask Peter to take a look at things.

Thanks for a great product and even better support!

And yes, close it up! I'm good to go now... ;-)