[SOLVED] Home Page Not Found After Disabling Other Languages

[fireman28]

Hello all,

 

I broke my website. I went to disable all languages but Spanish in my PS 1.4.6.2 and suddenly the home page only shows "Page Not Found". Chrome had no issues, FF needed clearing cache. IE does not change even if I clear ALL files, cache, history.

 

Regenerated .htaccess, tried re-enabling all installed languages, enabled/disabled Cache and Force Compilation...and nothing!!

 

Webpage had a few months working so the "clear cache" option for all visitors is not ideal...but again, it does not work in IE9, at least.

 

Any ideas, please??

 

Thanks in advance and Happy New Year!!

[Mike Kranzler]

Hi fireman,

Do you still have access to your site via the Back Office?

 

-Mike

[fireman28]

Yes, Mike....all works OK with Firefox (after clearing the cache) but it is not the case with IE, no matter what I do. Majority of my visitors, as expected, use IE.

 

Thank you for replying

[maconl]

Hi fireman.

 

if the site is : http://www.fitovitalia.com/

it still works in firefox , IE7 - IE8 Chrome

so seems you have to clear your browsers

Mandy

[fireman28]

Really, Mandy? It doesn't in my IE9....after clearing all cookies, cache, etc etc 3 times.

 

Thank you for checking.

[fireman28]

OK, IE 9 had an additional bit to uncheck before it completely cleared everything. It now shows in my desktop and laptop.

 

But something has changed in the site's redirection. For the 25% of returning visitors I've got...Do I have to explain how to clear their caches for FF and IE whenever they hit the 404 page? Not very elegant for a running e-commerce site...but, do I have any other option?

 

All ideas are welcomed, thanks.

[maconl]

Hi fireman,

i have IE7 , IE8 but don't have IE9

but when i check with netrenderer and choose IE9 your site is still there :

 

http://netrenderer.com/index.php

 

there you can add your url

or perhaps someone here on the forum can check for you in IE9

but i think still it has to do on your side with IE9

 

try to clear everything (also Temporary Internet files) via the configuration panel ( Shutdown IE9 when you do )

then try again

[maconl]

ow ok seems whe posted almost on the same time ,

well most people clear their files time to time

and one other thing is , when we are busy with our webshop

our browsers have so many offline files , more then visitors will have

 

one other option is to create a customade 404 page with a little explain

 

or maybe ( i didn't try this in Prestashop !! )

but maybe you can add an meta refresh into index.php so that the page refresh when a visitor comes

think Mike does know about this

[fireman28]

IE9 has got an additional option to "Preserve Favorites Website Data", apart for the typical Temporary Files, Cookies and History...I didn't notice it at first with the stress. I clicked the refresh button sooo many times, I almost broke it

 

I think this "Preserve..." option would not respect a meta refresh.

 

Thank you, Mandy

 

Aldo

[Mike Kranzler]

Thanks Mandy! I'll go ahead and mark this as solved for you.

 

-Mike

[fireman28]

Hi Mike,

 

I still feel there is something missing. I disabled extra languages and for the 25% of my visitors (the returning ones, according to Google Analytics), my site shows the 404 page.

 

Does anybody know what has changed and how can I avoid the risk of loosing a proportion of my visitors due to the bad impression it gives to show the 404 on the homepage for them?

 

Thanks

[Mike Kranzler]

Hi fireman,

That is why I wanted to check if you still had access to your Back Office. Often if you completely uninstall English from your languages, you can have some issues on your site. Can you please reinstall the English pack? You should be able to leave it disabled, but we've found that at times, removing it completely from your system can be problematic.

 

-Mike

[fireman28]

I didn't uninstall any language, Mike. I only disabled them using Tools->Languages and clicked on the green ticks next to the unused languages. Toggling them back on did not restore the original scenario.

 

I disabled the surplus languages because I noticed that more and more pages from installed languages other than Spanish (the only one I am using at the moment) were showing in Google search...obvious after checking my sitemap.xml

 

I am now running the risk of loosing some business thanks to this 'feature'...It is not the end of the world, but it hurts.

 

Thank you

[Mike Kranzler]

Hi fireman,

In this situation, you may want to temporarily enable Force Compile in your Back Office under Preferences > Performance. This will slow down your site a little bit, but it will force every visitor to load a completely fresh, uncached version of your site the next time they visit it. You can keep track of your user traffic to see when you can feel comfortable disabling Force Compile once most of that 25% have accessed the uncached version.

 

I hope this helps.

 

-Mike

[fireman28]

Sadly, it doesn't work. I originally tried disabling the cache, forcing compilation and flushing the cache.

 

It seems that the browsers keep cached a page that no longer exists and instead of re-directing recurring users, the server responds with a 404. And it all happened by disabling the languages. Perhaps if I knew which page I could play with the .htaccess (and learn how to use it) and redirect it from there? Or am I dreaming?

[Mike Kranzler]

Sadly, it doesn't work. I originally tried disabling the cache, forcing compilation and flushing the cache.

 

It seems that the browsers keep cached a page that no longer exists and instead of re-directing recurring users, the server responds with a 404. And it all happened by disabling the languages. Perhaps if I knew which page I could play with the .htaccess (and learn how to use it) and redirect it from there? Or am I dreaming?

 

I'm a little confused what you mean when you say that it doesn't work already. Have you already asked some of the users in that 25% to check your site again since you enabled Force Compile? They will be the only ones who can tell you whether or not it is working properly.

 

-Mike

[fireman28]

Mike, I cleared the cache of my desktop PC's IE and FF but not in my laptop, and I can see the difference. I am only extrapolating from there as the desktop PC behaved the same as the laptop until I went clearing the cache of each installed browser, apart of Chrome which never gave me any issue. I will check from my shop's PC tomorrow morning.

 

I think I hit the same issue as this guy, but with a "live" site. So far, I can only think of modifying my 404 page with some instructions on how to clear the visitor's browser cache, or discover how to find and redirect such ghost page to the real home page, if such is possible.

 

Thank you for your assistance.

[fireman28]

ohhh...give up for today. I think the page http://www.fitovitalia.com/es is cached in my laptop's IE and FF(and presumably my recurring visitors' computers). I tried to add the following to .htaccess in order to allow a permanent redirection to the ".com/" site:

 

Redirect 301 /es /

 

or

 

RewriteRule ^es/$ / [R=301]

 

But is the same as nothing, even by refreshing...

 

(sigh) I'll be back...if I find an answer.

 

Cheerio!

[Mike Kranzler]

Hi fireman,

I'm looking at this currently, and it appears that since all the other languages are disabled, you shouldn't need to direct people to the /es directory for the Spanish version of your home page. When I go to http://www.fitovitalia.com, everything not only loads properly, but it also loads in Spanish by default (whereas it would normally redirect me to /en if you had other languages enabled). Is the issue restricted to /es, or is this an issue for your customers even if they go directly to http://www.fitovitalia.com?

 

-Mike

[fireman28]

Mike, please don't misunderstand me. Once browser cache is cleared (or if you access it for the very first time AFTER I disabled the other languages), it shows OK. Reason why you don't see any problems.

 

If you are are returning AFTER I disabled the surplus languages, it shows the 404 unless the returning visitor clears his/her browser's cache...and in IE9 is a little bit more complex as it has a new option for clearing the cache.

 

My thought is that the browser keeps some kind of information cached from the previous .htaccess (?) which prompts it to change from www.fitovitalia.com to www.fitovitalia.com/es which we know it no longer exists.

 

That is why I was trying to make the browser (returning visitor's browser) to believe it was accessing the old page (/es) as it used to work before I innocently made the changes. But it didn't work.

 

Thanks once more. Now is almost midnight, my neurons are shutting down,

 

Good night!

[maconl]

Hi Aldo

i did delete all the languages

only i kept english (disabled) and dutch standard

i had the same issue but after i refreshed my browsers it was ok except on laptop

i kept forced compile , switched to original theme and back to my original theme

after i refreshed this laptop and a new start up it was ok

after this i changed the force compile and cache back to the normal situation

i know it sounds weird but sometimes i discoverd you have to play a bit

 

Mandy

i would give it a try to build in a refresh in index.php

[fireman28]

The thing is, Mandy, is that I did not delete any languages, I only disabled all languages but Spanish.

I can clear my cache, but imagine you have to ask that to your customers/returning visitors...not very elegant vs. my competition.

 

This morning my adwords were rejected (thankfully!) because the link was going nowhere, as my change removed the /es bit from the URL. There must be a solution for redirecting traffic....my incursion into the .htaccess did not give results.

 

And I wonder what may happen once I decide to start working with the English language, which is in my plans as soon as I find a decent-priced courier from Spain to the UK...perhaps not as problematic in the short term.

 

I will try to research on your suggestion to add a refresh, but I am not a php programmer....I know a little VB and that´s it.

 

Thanks a lot

[maconl]

Hi Aldo ,

i understood you didn't delete any languages

 

perhaps does it help to enable the languages again and also the language module

before you do this

 

set Compile force to yes , and Cache to No

then save

enable the languages and also the module

 

after you have done this

set compile force to No and cache to yes

then save ..

 

after this

try to Clear cache manually:

 

/prestashop/tools/smarty/ compile – Keep Index.php and delete all other files

/prestashop/tools/smarty/ cache – delete all files

 

When you use “Smarty 2” :

/prestashop/tools/ smarty_v2/ compile – Keep Index.php and delete all other files

/prestashop/tools/ smarty_v2/ cache – delete all files

 

or you have to make an redirect in your 404.php

the only thing would be if you if there is really no page , visitors go straight back to your index

it is just an idea

[fireman28]

Hi Mandy,

 

Yes. I tried that.

 

Because the /es is no longer being used, it has ruined my SEO (all Google search links are messed) and the Google Shopping feed had to be rebuilt.

 

I wonder if anybody thought of this before deciding to remove the country extension whenever somebody selected only one language.

 

My issue was very short term. Now it is no going back for me as I have corrected whatever I could and now is just hoping my next round of Google crawling comes back ASAP!!

 

Advice for Newbies like me: Disable languages BEFORE your site is live...or you will fall into a Google black hole for a while.

 

Thanks again, Mandy

[maconl]

hi Aldo ,

i think in this case an 404.php with redirect would be good for a while til google has everything back .from your side

 

but the otherway i tried to get your site with /se

i became the error page but still got the whole side so i could click on your catergories and could shop if i wanted

[fireman28]

Well, I hope shoppers are persistent, and search instead of abandoning at the first problem. Google Search has still got entries with old links...

 

If a PS developer is reading, please don't eliminate language URL extensions without giving a warning or providing a stable redirection method.

 

Now, instead of adding other languages when needed, I will use a new site within a subdomain, like uk.fitovitalia.com, for example. Don't want to risk it.

 

Thanks for your answers, Mandy.

[maconl]

hi aldo,,

your'e welcome , im still thinking about that 404 error page

there is also a solution to create the 404 with an redirect with some time ,

mean visitors wait one or two seconds before the redirect to the original site ,

think this will be the solution for you till google has the original pages back ,,

 

btw didn't you have any back up from your site and database ?

when you run a life shop and want to do some changes , make an back up from your site and database so the original can set back ,,

[Hasini]

I actually just had the same problem, and thank you for the solution:

 

I added the Hebrew language to my store, and my Index page showed 404 for some reason (it started doing it today).

I disable Hebrew and then enabled it again, and now everything is working.

 

Question is, what the heck is this?

[DrLightman]

I just had this very odd thing, I literally shitted my pants.

 

Had two lanugages enabled, english and italian.

 

Needed to hide english, because even if not linked on the site Google started indexing /en/ and it wasn't ready yet.

 

SO I went to disable (not uninstall) english.

 

Went back to the site just to be sure that all was working normally and... TA DA... 404 everywhere

 

I read all this thread but I didn't quite understand the solution. Was it to make a double enable/disable?

Edited October 31, 2012 by DrLightman (see edit history)

[DrLightman]

I think there is some 301 redirect going on in the background by PS, that is usually cached by Firefox for example that causes huge mess after playing wth enable/disable a language, just an idea.

 

And not everybody knows or can clear the browser cache... so it would be better not to use the 301?

 

I'm using PS 1.4.62 by the way.

[benjamin utterback]

Hello, Dr. Lightman, does this occur on all browsers of just firefox?

[MGStore]

I experienced the same thing and have not succeeded, but the language reactivate my english and local languages ​​of Indonesia. This problem makes me confused and seo my website indexed on Google using /en or /id, I hope the developer prestashop fix this problem.

 

sorry for my english..

Edited March 1, 2013 by MGStore (see edit history)