Two home pages, cannot delete either one

[Didier9]

I have had this problem for a while but it's getting more and more irritating and I need help.

Not sure how I got there, but I have two home pages. One is called "Home" the other "Home Page"
Both have a slug of "index-1" which I cannot change. If I try to change the slug on one to "index", it immediately comes back as "index-1". Same thing with the other.

If I try to delete either page, it is recreated immediately.

I can change the content of one page and when I do, I actually have two home pages, one that is shown when a visitor enters www.website.com and the other when he/she clicks on the Home link in the menu.
But if I try to change the content of the other page to look like it, then both pages revert to the old page.

I know it sounds crazy, and maybe my site is possessed. Maybe I need a web site exorcist... Any suggestion accepted.

I do not want to destroy (or recreate) the entire web site or take it down for any length of time as it is pretty busy. I do have a backup site that is pretty much a mirror image of the main site and it has the same problem of course, but at least my content is backed up.

I have been reluctant to go in with the console and hack it.

There has to be a proper way to clear the page index without destroying everything and if so, I'll be extremely grateful to know what it is.

Thanks in advance

[shawn_a]

I doubt it is "coming" back, its probably not actually deleting, did you delete the files.
Delete the xml files and delete the pages.xml

Also make sure your plugins are up to date or disabled when you do this.

[Didier9]

I doubt it is  "coming" back, its probably not actually deleting, did you delete the files.
Delete the xml files and delete the pages.xml

Also make sure your plugins are up to date or disabled when you do this.

when I delete the xml files, will I have to recreate the page (not an issue, just curious about the process to minimize downtime)?

Why does it want to keep the slug to the homepage at index-1 and why can't I change that back to index?

[Didier9]

I cannot find a file named "pages.xml" Where is it supposed to be?

[Didier9]

I cannot find a file named "pages.xml" Where is it supposed to be?

Found it...

[shawn_a]

data/other

[shawn_a]

you will want to create an index.xml if you do not have one, you will probably not be able to create one via the interface it is prohibited. pages.xml will be recreated after deletion

[Didier9]

you will want to create an index.xml if you do not have one, you will probably not be able to create one via the interface it is prohibited. pages.xml will be recreated after deletion

Ok, I nuked the index.xml, index-1.xml and the pages.xml
Now I have no home page, even though the GetSimple file manager shows a page named "Home" but won't let me edit it.

So I created a new page, called it Home. Empty for now. I gave it a slug of "index"

Now, when I call www.website.com, I get the "OOps page not found" message but when I click on Home in the GS menu, I get my new blank home page and the url is www.website.com/getsimple/index.php?id=index-1
We are back to an "index-1" slug

How do I tell GetSimple to use the Home page as Home?

Why does it want to call my home page "index-1"?

[Didier9]

you will want to create an index.xml if you do not have one, you will probably not be able to create one via the interface it is prohibited. pages.xml will be recreated after deletion

Ok, I nuked the index.xml, index-1.xml and the pages.xml
Now I have no home page, even though the GetSimple file manager shows a page named "Home" but won't let me edit it.

So I created a new page, called it Home. Empty for now. I gave it a slug of "index"

Now, when I call www.website.com, I get the "OOps page not found" message but when I click on Home in the GS menu, I get my new blank home page and the url is www.website.com/getsimple/index.php?id=index-1
We are back to an "index-1" slug

How do I tell GetSimple to use the Home page as Home?

Why does it want to call my home page "index-1"?

and when I look at the "pages" directory, I have an index.xml and index-1.xml files.

Also, when I try to recreate the index page, I cannot find the links to the other pages. I can only link to external URLs.

I am lost and in a panic as my web site's home page is pretty much down now.

[Didier9]

I am almost there. Two remaining problems:

- I cannot find links to the other pages in the editor, even though all the pages show up when I click on "Pages". Looks like it may be related to nuking the pages.xml file.
- I have no home page (when user looks for www.website.com, I get the Oops! Page not found! page). I do have the home page when I click on the Home tab in the GS menu

I changed the slug to the home page from "index-1" to "Home" in an attempt to get my home page back.
Did not work and now I am back to having two pages called Home in "Page Management". I can only edit one of them, when I click on the other, nothing happens. I cannot delete it.
The GS Menu has two Home tabs (I use FrixelOne theme) but only one points to a page, the other points to Ooops!
I do have an index.xml and home.xml files in the pages directory. They are clearly different.

I am willing to pay somebody to fix this for me as I do not have the skills, time or the patience at this point.
Let me know.

[shawn_a]

what version ?
are you using i18n plugin ?

There is no home page, index.xml is hardcoded.

either a plugin is jacking your site up, or maybe permissions are causing issues.

copy

/admin/inc/tmp/tmp-index.xml to pages directory
rename to index.xml
delete pages.xml , load page manager to recreate it automatically

[Didier9]

what version ?
are you using i18n plugin ?

There is no home page, index.xml is hardcoded.

either a plugin is jacking your site up, or maybe permissions are causing issues.

copy

/admin/inc/tmp/tmp-index.xml to pages directory
rename to index.xml
delete pages.xml , load page manager to recreate it automatically

I am using 3.3.4. I am a little scared of upgrading, the last time it did not go well.
I also use the i18n and other plugins.
Here are those that are activated. I do not actually use all of them at the moment, and I just noticed a few need to be updated.
Addsense Enabler
Version 1.0 — Author: Johannes Pretorius
Send Anonymous Data
Version 1.0 — Author: Chris Cagle
Contact Form
Version 5.8.2.1 — Author: Cumbe
Update to 6.1
DynPages
Version 0.7.2 — Author: Martin Vlcek
I18N Base
Version 3.2.8 — Author: Martin Vlcek
I18N
Version 3.2.8 — Author: Martin Vlcek
Update to 3.3.1
Innovation Theme Plugin
Version 1.2 — Author: Chris Cagle
Item Manager
Version 1.6 — Author: PyC
Pages & Comments
Version 3.2 — Author: Cumbe
Theme Highlighter
Version 1.1 — Author: Martin Vlcek
Multi User
Version 1.8.2 — Author: Mike Henken

I have checked the permissions through the GS admin tool and it is happy.

I will try your suggestion later today.

Thanks

[shawn_a]

You are fighting bugs.

[Didier9]

what version ?
are you using i18n plugin ?

There is no home page, index.xml is hardcoded.

either a plugin is jacking your site up, or maybe permissions are causing issues.

copy

/admin/inc/tmp/tmp-index.xml to pages directory
rename to index.xml
delete pages.xml , load page manager to recreate it automatically

OK, now I do not have the Ooops page, I have a "Welcome to GetSimple, sorry your search returned no hits" page when I try http://www.website.com/getsimple/

I still have my normal "home" page in the Page Manager as "Home" and it has a slug of "home"

There is a "Welcome to GetSimple" page in the Page Manager with a slug of "index" that is different from the one displayed at step 1 above.

Should I copy the content of my home page in that page? or how do I make my current "home" page (which is not in index) my home page?

[shawn_a]

Index is home page there is no option.

[Didier9]

Index is home page there is no option.

OK, I like that but assuming that the home page is the page that is loaded when I do http://www.website.com/getsimple/, how do I change its content?  It is different from the page "Welcome to GetSimpleSorry, your search returned no hits." in the page manager) and also different from the page named "Home" in page manager and there is no other page shown in the page manager that would remotely look like what I see?

I want to point out that all that was working fine when I originally installed GetSimple. Over time, I noticed that there were two copies of the "home" page, I do not know specifically what I did to make it so, I did not notice it immediately.

[shawn_a]

no idea its not GS doing that, sounds like i18n search, or a bug or plugin issue.

[datiswous]

Could it be a template overriding the main content?

I would say try to narrow down the issue by temporary disabling some/all plugins (make a backup first) and also changing to a different theme.

Btw. Addsense Enabler plugin is seriously outdated. Best not to use plugins for GS 2.03 on GS 3+. I think there are newer plugins that do the same. Also, there's a Multi User 1.9 plugin.

[Didier9]

no idea its not GS doing that, sounds like i18n search, or a bug or plugin issue.

i18n is disabled at the moment.
i18n_base.php
Disabled Plugin
Activate
I18N Custom Fields
Disabled Plugin
Activate
I18N
Disabled Plugin
Activate

I disabled the Item Manager plugin and the search stuff is gone, now the index page looks like the normal GetSimple welcome page.

OK, so what is the best way to move my home page content into the index page? I tried to edit the Welcome To GetSimple page but it will not save the changes.

[Bigin]

what version of Item Manager do you use?

PS. I see 1.6

[Didier9]

what version of Item Manager do you use?

PS. I see 1.6

Yes, it was 1.6. It is disabled at the moment, not sure why I had it enabled or installed, it seems my web site is working fine without it (except for the home page issue), it may have been an experiment.

We are making progress...

Anyhow, the remaining issue at the moment is that the index page is the GetSimple default but is apparently not editable, yet is has the "index" stub, which if I understand that part is what tells GetSimple to load it when someone browses to www.website.com/getsimple/

I want to make sure browsing to www.website.com/getsimple/ points to my home page (the page named "Home" and which has a stub of "home" in page manager. I do not want to mess that up and do it right.

[Didier9]

Anyhow, the remaining issue at the moment is that the index page is the GetSimple default but is apparently not editable, yet is has the "index" stub, which if I understand that part is what tells GetSimple to load it when someone browses to www.website.com/getsimple/

I want to make sure browsing to www.website.com/getsimple/ points to my home page (the page named "Home" and which has a stub of "home" in page manager. I do not want to mess that up and do it right.

At the moment, the "Welcome to GetSimple" page has a stub of "index" and it is greyed out, so I believe I cannot change it.

Turns out index.xml was read only, so I went to the console and changed the permissions to match the other files, then I renamed my former "Home" page something else and only then renamed the "Welcome to GetSimple" page "Home" and finally copied the text from the old page and I think I am done, finally.

Thank for the help.

I think the problem originally (a year ago or so, so I am not sure) was that I tried to create a second home page before changing the name of the first one and that got GetSimple confused. This time, I did it the other way around, which makes more sense but that means that for a few seconds I had no home page. Obviously not as big of a problem as not having one for several days...

[Didier9]

It never ends...

One final problem (I hope): When I try to create links to my other pages in any page, I do not have the option of linking to my pages, only outside links.

How can I restore that capability?