trouble

As described in How's that Ubercart review coming along?, my work on a Drupal ecommerce site using Ubercart came to a halt when Node Import refused to import my spreadsheet. I found and fixed the problem: Node Import was choking on a column that held paths for my nodes' images. (It was choking silently and demurely, which didn't help at all; a spittle-flinging "ack.. hack... image paths... hurk... killing me..." would have made my troubleshooting a lot faster.)

It seems Node Import wanted slashes in front of my paths (like this: /images/picture.jpg), whereas the book example I'm following shows paths without (like this: images/picture.jpg). I'll add more on that in the final review, but let me note that I can't say for sure it's an error in the book; perhaps the slash-less paths are correct under some setups, such as a different file system setting. (My sample site is using the Public, not Private, download method. Not that I know that that matters.)

In any case, for anyone having trouble getting Node Import to work, one basic troubleshooting step should be obvious: try importing versions of the spreadsheet with columns removed, one batch after another, until you can track down the column(s) with data responsible for the trouble. (You know, remove half the columns, so you test the remaining half; then reverse things so you test the other half... If one of those two variants causes trouble, then test that with first one half of its columns removed, then the other half... There's a name for this sort of thing, but I'm blanking on it. Computer-y people, anybody know?)

All right, back to the Ubercarting...

EDIT: I think my problem's solved. See end.

I'm working on an Ubercart store using the documentation at Ubercart.org and Packt Publishing's Ubercart 2x book. According to that book and to Ubercart.org documentation, the form at Administer › Store administration › Configuration › Cart settings should have three tabs: Cart settings, Cart panes, and Cart block. However, on the new site I created, I see no tabs at all; there are the various settings expected for the Cart settings tab (General cart settings, Anonymous cart duration, Continue shopping element, and Cart breadcrumb), but there are no actual tabs, and thus no way to reach the settings for Cart panes and Cart block.

Any ideas on why this might be? I'm on Drupal 6.15 and Ubercart 6.x-2.2. I tried enabling all core and optional Ubercart modules, to no avail. The Theme is the default Garland. No funny cacheing- or optimization-related features are enabled. What could cause these tabs to be missing?

(I've asked the question at the Ubercart.org forums and the Drupal.org forums, and am still looking for an answer. Thanks to anyone who can help!)

EDIT: I'm going to sheepishly – if tentatively – retract my question. I've been unable to find any other folks with the same problem, suggesting that it's truly a bizarre quirk of my own setup, and not a Drupal or Ubercart problem per se, with a clean answer floating about out there. In the end, I tried "joggling" things: clearing cached data in admin/settings/performance (even though I have cache disabled); and, disabling and then re-enabling Ubercart modules. Somehow, those actions did the trick: I now get the missing tabs. 

As happens with Drupal problems now and then, it's a welcome but unsatisfying resolution; it's the equivalent of smacking a TV to make the picture come in, without revealing anything about the source of the problem, how to prevent it happening again, and what to do if a future recurrence proves more stubborn. Sigh. In any case, things do look to be working again. 

For anyone running across the same problem and this post in the future: You may be facing a "gremlins" issue and not a clear problem to be reasoned out. Try purging with any and all caches, disabling and re-enabling modules, and just general fiddling with things. Heck, try giving the monitor a few knocks; that just may do it. : /  

A short tale of how I got the links page working after a Weblinks module upgrade broke it.

The ideal solution would be to track down the exact problem, posting issues and working with the module's maintainers, finally squaring everything away with the current module version. However, the issues page doesn't show anyone else having trouble with the module; the problem may be an obscure glitch related to my frequent abuse of this site for experimentation purposes. More importantly, at the moment I'm short on time to fiddle with this. I decided I'd just go back to the previous version of the module and be done with it.

Here's the process, including an unexpected problem necessitating light database vivisection:

My Available Updates page (admin/reports/updates) informed me of some freshly-scrubbed module updates milling at the gates. So I let a few in... and a couple of ingrates are soiling the carpet and wiping their hands on the drapes.

Web Links

Version 6.x-2.1 of the Web Links module did something nasty to my once-beautiful links page. There are now way too many terms appearing, most of which contain no links within. Those that do display their links oddly. I'm not seeing similar reports on the issues page. Must track down problem.

SEO Checklist

Version 6.x-2.0 of the SEO Checklist module causes various admin pages to spit out errors like this:

user warning: Duplicate entry 'sites/all/modules/seo_checklist/seochecklist.module' for key 1 query: INSERT INTO system (name, info, type, filename, status, throttle, bootstrap) VALUES ('seochecklist', 'a:10:{s:4:\"name\";s:15:\"\"SEO\" Checklist\";s:11:\"description\";s:52:\"A Search Engine Optimization checklist for Drupal 6.\";s:4:\"core\";s:3:\"6.x\";s:7:\"package\";s:15:\"\"SEO\" Checklist\";s:7:\"version\";s:7:\"6.x-

Mmm, that's good summer readin'!

Funny, the module's not even enabled. Enabling it and running update.php, I still get such errors in the update report and in admin pages... but wait, it's still not enabled. I can't enable it. I see someone's having the same problem here, so that should help me solve things. 

"Why I Hate Drupal." It's not the presentation you'd expect from one of the key persons behind Drupal's growth, but that's what an attentive audience heard at DrupalCon DC earlier this year. Now, if you guess that there's a tongue-in-cheek component behind that title, you'd be right; "Why I Hate Drupal" was a chance for a group of developer to point at some Drupal bugs, shortcoming, and frustrations, commiserating over a Keynote document instead of a beer. But it's not all laughs; the speaker and the audience have some real steam to release.

The presentation shouldn't turn anyone off of Drupal and its amazing strengths. What it offers is a frank reality check against too much upbeat hype, and some welcome pointers to hurdles that would-be Drupal masters will have to overcome. And good honest criticism is always necessary to make further improvements.

I jotted down a few notes and quotes while listening to the presentation video. Much of the content was focused on trials facing developers, but even the Drupal beginner will recognize a few sore spots.For your amusement, below is the text which I earlier posted on the Drupal Japan group (in a discussion of how likely Drupal is to "break out" in that market).  

Click here and read more!