The main menu of my website http://www.meckyr.com (allowing access to the various sections like news, photos, and polls) is suddenly missing. I noticed that in my blocks administration section of the admin menu that the "main menu" block isn't even listed anymore.
I gave another gentleman access to this site to help with news updates and he did make a mistake or two in attempting to create some new blocks (after I told him not to touch that section!), but would it have been possible for him to delete the "main menu" block? None of the other system module blocks even offer a delete option.
Thanks for any help.
Hopefully someone can just send me a main menu file and tell me where to upload it.
Thanks again!
~Christian

The solution may be even simpler than that.

Go into System Admin »» Preferences Main »» General Settings and set "Update module template .html files from themes/your theme/templates directory?" to Yes.

Now, go into Modules Administration and click on the update button next to System. This recreates the system templates for your site.

Now see if your Main Menu block is there again. If not, do the following...

Go into Template Set Manager and click on the List link next to System.

In the next page you may see a row that is highligted in yellow. If it's the system_block_mainmenu.html row, you're in luck! Just click the Generate link and it will recreate your Main Menu template.

If the above doesn't work, simply download the version of XOOPS you have installed (i.e.: 2.0.13.2 or 2.2.3), extract the archive on your desktop, and upload the modules\system\templates\blocks\system_block_mainmenu.html file into the corresponding directory on the server.

Then just repeat the steps listed above.

Once you're done, go into System Admin »» Preferences Main »» General Settings and set "Update module template .html files from themes/your theme/templates directory?" to No.

Hope this helps.

James

Thank you very much for the fast and easily understood directions. Unfortunately, it did not work. When I updated the system module, it did indeed read in that text screen that follows that the "system_block_mainmenu" was reinstalled and recompiled so I got excited. Nothing changed though.
I also went to the template section and there was nothing in yellow and no generate link option. "system_block_mainmenu" is listed there however and when I select to view it the links do show up in a preview screen (although horizontal instead of vertical) but the links work.
Should I still attempt to replace the file? If it helps I'll end with the code found in the "system_block_mainmenu".
Oh, I also just noticed that while my headlines section header still shows on my front page, the content of it is missing. Any chance these two are tied in together?
Thanks a bunch.
~Christian
(contents of "system_block_mainmenu" in template set)

<{$block.lang_home}> <{foreach item=module from=$block.modules}> <{$module.name}> <{foreach item=sublink from=$module.sublinks}> <{$sublink.name}> <{/foreach}> <{/foreach}>

May be getting ahead of myself, but I also went to "modules\system\templates\blocks\system_block_mainmenu.html" on the server. It's code matches what is in that template file, the one that does preview properly.

For giggles, I saved that file to my computer and deleted it from the server. I went through the previous steps again and updated the system module. The text after hitting update does say
Block Main Menu updated. Block ID: 5
Template system_block_mainmenu.html updated.
Template system_block_mainmenu.html recompiled.
but when I checked the server that file did not recreate itself. Should it or am i misunderstanding?
I copied the version from my computer back to the server.

Try checking out System Admin->Groups and make sure the main menu checkbox has a checkmark in each group for "Block Access Rights"

If this does not work could you swich on phpdebug in general prefs and visit the front page and paste any errors here?

Yes, checking the group permission was the first thing I tried. Main menu is checked. (it says (id5) next to it) Strange that it shows up as a checkable box, but it isn't listed among the rest of my blocks in block administration.
Even stranger that it does appear on the server at
"modules\system\templates\blocks\system_block_mainmenu.html"
Is this the location of all the blocks listed in block admin?
Sorry, getting ahead of myself again.

Could you clarify more about phpdebug for me? I turn it on and I get a list of queries. Is this what you want posted? The front page looks the same to me after turning it on. Same with module/block debug. With this on, I get a new set of queries for every page I visit but nothing flashes "error". i just don't know what I'm looking for.

Thanks.

And I am willing to give admin rights to the site to anyone who would be willing to help. i'm sure this is simple.

Yes the messages that appear at the bottom of the page with debug on, but if nothing obvious is showing? might be worth a look..

What version of XOOPS have you? if it is older than the recent 2.2x series it could be that when you go into blocks the main menu block is hiding, in this instance click on the box at the top of blocks menu admin, and choose blocks visible to "webmasters"..

Sorry for the responding delay. I needed a break before my head exploded.

To answer your questions, I'm using XOOPS 2.0.10. I know it's an older version, but it was the newest at the time and it has all the functionality that the site needed for me to be happy.

Also, yes, I'm viewing the blocks in "webmaster" view, so it should be showing them all, but, alas, no "main menu" any more.

I did end up with this error using the debug once I figured out what I was looking for:

Warning [Xoops]: Smarty error: unable to read resource: "db:xoopsheadline_block_rss.html" in file class/smarty/Smarty.class.php line 1084

This obviously explains the lack of my headline content, though I don't know how to interperate what's wrong.

While eventually I'd like this fixed as well, my biggest concern is still getting my main menu back!

I continue to be appreciative of any help. I'm obviously not a programmer and I barely understand how XOOPS works. I knew enough to do updates to the site but as I said, one of my helpers tried to add a custom block and in the process somehow removed the main menu. I removed the one that he added...could he have somehow renamed "main menu" and then I deleted it thinking that his custom one was just cluttering up my view?

Thanks again.

Don't know if this will help but I had a similar problem with Main Menu dissapearing and a similar error to

Smarty error: unable to read resource: "db:xoopsheadline_block_rss.html" in file class/smarty/Smarty.class.php line 1084

but mine mentioned "db:system_block_mainmenu.html" instead

I traced this to a missing entry in the database yourprefix_tplfile table that should have been there (yourprefix should be replaced with your own prefix)- I fished out the correct record of another installation and using phpMyAdmin browsed the data table and added the entry as a new line
This fixed my problem completely

it looked something like this for the fields in order comma delimited:-

22,5,system,default,system_block_mainmenu.html,Shows the main navigation menu of the site,1125097970,0,block

NOTE I made sure not to use existing values for the 22,5 bit and the long number is a date/time I think but not critical(I hope)

If something like this is not in the table then that may be your problem also you should look for xoopsheadline_block_rss.html at the same time

Again don't know if this would help and someone else may be able to give further instruction. If you don't know how to run phpMyAdmin someone else may also help as it is built in to my siteadmin ensim tools.

Also be aware that this was a fix for my version of XOOPS 2.2.3 Final so it may be different for your version. My problem occured after installing multiMenu

Thanks for the post, it's about two levels above my paygrade though.
What do you mean by "yourprefix_tplfile table"? I have access on the back end to all these files and my path usually looks something like this:

/var/www/html/modules/system/templates/blocks

Where amongst the madness would the tplfile table be? I've searched for a good while and the nearest thing I could find was /var/www/html/modules/system/admin/tplsets but none of the code in it looks like what you referenced.

Let's back up a bit and rethink:

Problem: Main menu missing on front page, is no longer listed as block in blocks admin.

Whatever caused the problem was done through the admin menu within Xoops. No back end files were messed with because the person who caused this error had no access to the ftp side of things.

Question:
The blocks admin section lists all the available blocks. What file generates this list? Let me start there and see if main menu is even listed. Currently, the only place I see mainmenu is:

/var/www/html/modules/system/templates/blocks/system_block_mainmenu.html

and this is the same file I see on other installations.

I can also access this through template manager and the same code shows up and previews fine with workable links. It just doesn't end up in blocks admin and I can't turn it on!

I hope my descriptions are satisfactory. I tend to be to verbose.

Thanks again for all those helping here.