Help - screwed up my home page

I did something stupid (not sure what it is yet).
Originally, I had the categories showing on the main page under the introduction text. After doing something wrong, the main page was going to a "category doesn't exist" page. I turned off "show categories on main page" under configuration and it's showing the correct home page but without the categories. I would like to get it back to where it was to show the main categories after the introduction text. If I set the configuration to "show categories on main page" it reverts back to where the home page shows "category doesn't exist".

Thanks for any help.

https://www.spminiatures.com

Carol

spminis:

I did something stupid (not sure what it is yet).
Originally, I had the categories showing on the main page under the introduction text. After doing something wrong, the main page was going to a "category doesn't exist" page. I turned off "show categories on main page" under configuration and it's showing the correct home page but without the categories. I would like to get it back to where it was to show the main categories after the introduction text. If I set the configuration to "show categories on main page" it reverts back to where the home page shows "category doesn't exist".

Thanks for any help.

https://www.spminiatures.com

Carol

Additional info - I have the "main open with category set to "0".

What plugins do you have installed to your system? What types of things have been done to the store or suspected to have been done from the last time that the main page looked "right"?

mc12345678:

What plugins do you have installed to your system? What types of things have been done to the store or suspected to have been done from the last time that the main page looked "right"?

I have a few plugins that were done a long time ago but the site has been working well.
I changed nothing recently. What I did do was to accidentally delete a sub category that had links to another sub category. That's when the problem started. I had a recent back up my database and I restored it and nothing changed.The products in the remaining subcategory all had "invalid category links" but I fixed those.

Carol

spminis:

I have a few plugins that were done a long time ago but the site has been working well.
I changed nothing recently. What I did do was to accidentally delete a sub category that had links to another sub category. That's when the problem started. I had a recent back up my database and I restored it and nothing changed.The products in the remaining subcategory all had "invalid category links" but I fixed those.

Carol
I suspect that there is a product that hasn't had it's master_categories_id set back to a sub-category. Might be an issue of pointing to a non-existent category, but I don't see how that could cause this issue/don't think it is a cause.

So, couple of ways that can approach an investigation into the issue. Could briefly generate a new file that has a query. Could just try to simply navigate the first catalog/products listing to see if there are any product listed in that category along with the sub-categories. Could use phpMyAdmin to look through one of the database tables. Might change an existing file to possibly provide a small amount of information to the browser to indicate how/why no categories are found at that point in the processing so that may be able to narrow down the cause though it tends to be product to category relationships when this type situation occurs.

Have a preferred/accessible approach?

mc12345678:

I suspect that there is a product that hasn't had it's master_categories_id set back to a sub-category. Might be an issue of pointing to a non-existent category, but I don't see how that could cause this issue/don't think it is a cause.

So, couple of ways that can approach an investigation into the issue. Could briefly generate a new file that has a query. Could just try to simply navigate the first catalog/products listing to see if there are any product listed in that category along with the sub-categories. Could use phpMyAdmin to look through one of the database tables. Might change an existing file to possibly provide a small amount of information to the browser to indicate how/why no categories are found at that point in the processing so that may be able to narrow down the cause though it tends to be product to category relationships when this type situation occurs.

Have a preferred/accessible approach?

I did check the database through the phpmyadmin and found a catagory with no id and deleted it but that didn't help. I will go through the database again. My suspicion is the same as yours, that's it's problem with an entry. I have older backups but that would wipe out orders and new product listings etc. It's not a critical issue so I don't want to go that route.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction

Carol

mc12345678:

I suspect that there is a product that hasn't had it's master_categories_id set back to a sub-category. Might be an issue of pointing to a non-existent category, but I don't see how that could cause this issue/don't think it is a cause.

So, couple of ways that can approach an investigation into the issue. Could briefly generate a new file that has a query. Could just try to simply navigate the first catalog/products listing to see if there are any product listed in that category along with the sub-categories. Could use phpMyAdmin to look through one of the database tables. Might change an existing file to possibly provide a small amount of information to the browser to indicate how/why no categories are found at that point in the processing so that may be able to narrow down the cause though it tends to be product to category relationships when this type situation occurs.

Have a preferred/accessible approach?

I went through the database and found a product associated with category "0". When I deleted that, it fixed it. You were a great help. Thanks again!

Carol