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Admin Tools

#30347 Some links not working except for Super Users

Posted in ‘Admin Tools for Joomla! 4 & 5’
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Environment Information

Joomla! version
n/a
PHP version
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Admin Tools version
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Latest post by on Friday, 09 November 2018 17:17 CST

Wednesday, 10 October 2018 05:38 CDT

stevebenson
After installing and configuring Admin Tools, some of the links in the front end site - either in buttons, images or text - no longer work for visitors or Registered Users. However, they all work for logged in Super Users.

I've not been able to determine why some links don't work - many are exactly the same style and format as links which still DO work. For example, on the page https://www.asxascend.com/index.php/top-menu/info/knowledge-base the links to the first three articles do not work but the rest do. All the articles were created in the same way. Baffling!

I've not been able to find any answers on the support forum or reading through the documentation. I've also tried turning off each option in turn under "Configure WAF" but nothing fixes the issue.

Please can you help? It's important that Registered users have access to some of these unresponsive links, particularly one which downloads an Excel spreadsheet.

I don't want to uninstall Admin Tools for this site - it has already (on it's first day) detected 57 "Login failed" attempts from a Russian IP address - but I'll have to if I can't resolve the issue.

Thanks.

Wednesday, 10 October 2018 07:28 CDT

tampe125
Hello,

Let's make sure that the problem is indeed caused by Admin Tools. In order to do so, try the following:

1. Try setting the Error Reporting level in your Global Configuration to "None". Many errors are caused by harmless PHP Notices and Warnings being output to the browser, breaking anything which requires HTTP header manipulation such as Joomla!'s session management, AJAX calls and download systems.

2. Try to replicate the issue after disabling the "System - Admin Tools" plugin. If you can still replicate the issue, it is not caused by Admin Tools. Disabling that plugin means that Admin Tools code (including the Web Application Firewall) is not running on your site.

3. If you suspect an issue with the .htaccess file, replace its contents with the contents of the stock htaccess.txt file shipped with every version of Joomla!. If you are on GoDaddy please wait for 1-30 minutes for the changes to be effective. Then, retry loading the problem page. If you can still reproduce the error, then it is not caused by .htaccess Maker.

If doing any of the above resulted in the issue still occurring, it's not related with Admin Tools and we can't help you. If doing any of the above did stop the issue from occurring, we'll have to do some troubleshooting.

First go to Admin Tools, Web Application Firewall, Configure WAF. Make sure "Log security exceptions" is set to Yes; if it's not, set it to Yes and click on Save. Now try reproducing your issue. Immediately after that, please go to Admin Tools, Web Application Firewall, Security Exceptions Log. The latest log entry at the top should have the date and time of when the issue occurred. Please copy the Reason and Target URL here so that we can further help you.

If, however, you do not see a log entry, or the Date and/or IP address do not match your last access, this problem is not caused by Admin Tools' WAF. In this case, you will have to do some .htaccess troubleshooting. You may need to read the general .htaccess troubleshooting page, as well as the page on finding out necessary .htaccess exceptions.

Davide Tampellini

Developer and Support Staff

🇮🇹Italian: native 🇬🇧English: good • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Rome (UTC +1)
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Wednesday, 10 October 2018 08:23 CDT

stevebenson
Hi Davide

Thank you so much for such a quick and detailed response. Having tested the above, I found the problem wasn’t with Admin Tools, as you suspected. It was an update of another component on the same day. The vendors have now issued a further update and the site works perfectly again.

Sorry for jumping to the wrong conclusion and thanks again. I now also know how to temporarily disable Admin Tools if I have any further problems.

Regards,
Steve

Wednesday, 10 October 2018 08:35 CDT

tampe125
No problem, I'm glad you found the real cause of the issue.

Davide Tampellini

Developer and Support Staff

🇮🇹Italian: native 🇬🇧English: good • 🕐 My time zone is Europe / Rome (UTC +1)
Please keep in mind my timezone and cultural differences when reading my replies. Thank you!

Friday, 09 November 2018 17:17 CST

System Task
system
This ticket has been automatically closed. All tickets which have been inactive for a long time are automatically closed. If you believe that this ticket was closed in error, please contact us.
Edited by on 2018-11-09 17:17 CST

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