includes/modules/pages/index/header.php causes empty homepage

The site I'm working on uses quite an old theme (all business). After upgrading to Zen Cart 1.5.7b, the homepage is empty; whereas previously it would display the categories in a grid.

I've tracked the error down to changes in the file /includes/modules/pages/index/header_php.php (sorry about typo in name of this thread)

My question: how can I over-ride this file? Or if that's not the right approach, how can I display a grid of categories on the homepage? With the old file v1.5.6 it worked fine.

The commit that seems to cause the blank page is https://github.com/zencart/zencart/c...d185756fe99be6

Many thanks, Edith

That particular page is certainly quite different from prior versions.

No you can't "override" that file. Better to identify what's different about it and re-apply those differences to the new version in whatever way is appropriate for the new version.
You can add more header_php_xyz.php files if you want to do more things. This is rarely the best option though.

Chances are the "empty" (most likely "partial blank page") is the result of a PHP error being triggered ... and those log details will be recorded as new files at /logs/myDebug-xxxxxxxx.log ... and using the actual error details will help you sort out what needs fixing, or you can post the details here for further help.

Thank you! Yes, it's not a blank page, no Fatal PHP error. Just the category grid is missing. Logs are not recording anything unfortunately.

Thank you for confirming that over-ride of header_php.php is not possible. I will give this another go on Monday & post an update.

Regards, Edith

Doing a quick cursory review I discovered that All Business appears to have the "column-grid-layout" mod integrated for its product listing. It could be that that's clashing with other things. Fortunately the responsive_classic in v157b has already integrated the column-layout features, so you might consider using the /includes/modules/responsive_classic/product_listing.php and /includes/templates/responsive_classic/templates/tpl_modules_product_listing.php files as a base for a replacement.

The All Business template also won't work on PHP 7.2+ due to old syntax used in its files.

Yes, the "all business" is pretty old. I did update it so it runs fine on PHP 7.3, but I appreciate it's on borrowed time.

I've traced the issue back to the "status" check. On the homepage, the category ID = 0; which isn't in the database and hasn't got a status. So the status check fails; and defaults to $current_category_not_found.

My fix is to change header_php.php on line 33 from:

PHP Code:

---

    if ($category_status->EOF ) {
        $current_category_not_found = true;
    } 


---

to

PHP Code:

---

    if ($category_status->EOF && $current_category_id !== 0 ) {
        $current_category_not_found = true;
    } 


---

Hope this helps others who want to show a category grid on the homepage.