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How to make CMSms error 404 - fast

Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2021 2:51 pm
by smithdesign77
Hey all!
I just found the funniest error I personally ever encountered with CMSmadesimple. ;D

Storytime:
My customer called me that his page answers with a 404. She admitted being in the content manager clicking around (its just construction and I encouraged her to feel free to click around everywhere to get used to the UI and all … in my eyes CMSms is almost bullet proof so why not?) and with that she killed the page. "Impossible!" I said and got online.
I looked around and couldn't find anything weired or wrong. I set debug mode, changed global settings, deleted the htaccess, messed with PHP settings, cleared the cache, reset all pages to one template, batch-processed all pages to HTTPS forth and back, refreshed the installation, … no joy. Some random page with an address would deliver fine - just the root URL would not, neither with or without the 'index.php'.
"The file you are looking for does not exist." — Strange. ???
Now I went with her through the steps she had done — and now I see it.

How to:
Use your starting page, 'home' or however you call it. Go into the editor, set the page to be a parent in the "content type". Save.
What happened? Now CMSms has no default page anymore, while a content-type parent has no content and hence cannot be a page or work as starting page.
Actually totally logic. I wouldn't had done one thing different if I designed it.

Is it a bug?
I'd say no.
However, meanwhile I need to click twice »yes, I am absolutely sure I really want to delete this unrecoverable«.
So, t h e r e f o r e one would think that such a major change also would come with some kind of warning - or maybe even full deny of the backend, stating that this change that would result in killing the page.



I don't want to throw any stones here, please don't get me wrong. In the end I was rolling over the floor laughing because this outcome was actually clear if one thought about it; of course for a newbie like my customer not - and me entering the room after it happened … I did not see in the content listing that there is no default page set. Just didn't see it. All marks green, no one red or such - good to go, right?

I can imagine that programming a solution for this may be a lot bigger than it seems; checking if the currently edited page is the default page, blocking content-type changes - or giving a warning after checking first if - or whatever else … probably a lot steps to code.

So in the end I just wanted to share my story in case one googled this (I did and didn't find my case - dunno if I was too stupid or too quick here) and maybe give you guys a laughter too, like I just had. I guess the most people working with CMSms are coders, maybe a few designers like me and otherwise trained editors that wouldn't click around randomly to see what happens. It was my fault actually leaving her alone. ;D

Thanks for all your work making the magic of CMSms happen - have a great day!

Re: How to make CMSms error 404 - fast

Posted: Wed Sep 08, 2021 4:07 pm
by DIGI3
We've had similar logic puzzles in the past - internal page links pointing to themselves, etc. Setting the home page to a Section Header (what I assume you mean by Parent) should probably not be allowed and I'd recommend filing a BR. I don't think it's a stretch to consider it a bug if a user can accidentally take a site down that easily.

Re: How to make CMSms error 404 - fast

Posted: Thu Sep 09, 2021 7:41 am
by smithdesign77
Thank you Digi!

I can file a report.
I can try.
Dunno where to do - I never did that, I always asked the board for help. ;D
But I'll try. Can't be that difficult.

And yes, I meant the section header. I just didn't know how the english translation was and was too lazy to switch the language to find it out. :-X
Sorry for the confusion if.
Thanks again…