Project:Support desk

Welcome to the MediaWiki Support desk. This is a place where you can ask any questions you have about installing, using or administrating the MediaWiki software.

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• If your question is about a specific feature, check the relevant technical manual , end-user help or extension page and consider asking on its talk page .
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1. To help us answer your questions, please indicate which version of MediaWiki you are using, as found on your wiki's Special:Version page:
2. If possible, add $wgShowExceptionDetails = true;error_reporting( -1 );ini_set( 'display_errors', 1 ); to LocalSettings.php in order to make MediaWiki show more detailed error messages.
3. Please include the web address (URL) to your wiki if possible. It's often easier for us to identify the source of the problem if we can see the error directly.
4. To start a new thread, click the box with the text "Start a new topic".

There is a problem with this page and I don't have enough experience to solve it.

The text begins with "The Popups (known in Special:Version as Previews)".

But if you follow the link to the Special:Version page, you will see that there is no "Previews" on this page (nor "Popups" by the way).

I thought of 2 solutions:

• remove the wrong text on the Extension:Popups page
• add, in the right table (I don't know which one) of the Special:Version page, the information about this (important) extension.

I think that the best solution is the second one but I don't know who can do it.

If you think solution 1 is better, I can make the change if needed.

Correct, the link is to this wiki's own Special:Version page, and neither is installed here, but it should really be referring to a description of the Special:Version page on the wiki in which that extension is installed. Given the context, perhaps a better link would be to Manual:Developing extensions#Registering features with MediaWiki.

I am trying to create different versions of a page. For example with colored title and without colored title.

Is it possible to create a links to different versions of the history of a page?

Yes, just click "View history" then on any of the revisions listed there. Here's an old version of mediawiki.org's main page: https://www.mediawiki.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki&oldid=669341.

Is this what you mean?

Just in case anyone finds this later, I found the solution here: https://www.reddit.com/r/mediawiki/comments/1axbuyh/problem_with_the_visual_editor/

Setting $wgUsePathInfo = true; in LocalSettings.php.

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After updating from 1.39 to 1.42.3 all pages with categories have the same problem:

When I open the page in the Visual Editor the existing categories are shown in the category box at the bottom of the page as red links with these urls; Index.php?title=Category:category name].

If I leave it like that then after saving the page that url shows up at the bottom of the page text and the page no longer has any categories.

If I use the Source Editor instead everything is fine and the category shows up between double brackets.

The steps I took to update:

I uploaded the 1.42.3 zip to the server, had it unzipped to a new directory. I downloaded the latest versions for LabeledSectionTransclusion and Popups and uploaded those to the Extensions folder in the new directory.

I renamed the 1.39 folder to another name and then renamed the 1.42.3 folder to the regular wiki name. Then I ran the update script.

I opened the wiki main page and then saw I forgot to copy the images directory to the new folder, which is what I did next. I then reloaded the main page and everything looked fine.

The first time I edited a page I didn't notice the error at the bottom but after saving I saw what happened and from then on it became clear this is happening every time now.

I've tested by disabling all the extensions except for the editors to see if any of those could be the culprit but I keep getting the same issue.

These are the normally enabled extensions:

wfLoadExtension( 'CodeEditor' );

wfLoadExtension( 'LabeledSectionTransclusion' );

wfLoadExtension( 'PageImages' );

wfLoadExtension( 'ParserFunctions' );

wfLoadExtension( 'Popups' );

wfLoadExtension( 'TextExtracts' );

wfLoadExtension( 'VisualEditor' );

wfLoadExtension( 'WikiEditor' );

I did find the following in the release notes for 1.42:

ParserOutput::getCategories(), deprecated in 1.40, has been removed. You should use ::getCategoryNames() and ::getCategorySortKey() instead.

Maybe that is related but I don't understand how it could be as all the other extensions except for the two mentioned above come bundled with the latest version and should be compatible, one would think.

Could it be something needs to be added or removed from LocalSettings?

I'd love to know what the fix for this is as I used categories on all pages.

Thanks!

Hi, I'm looking to import templates from Wikipedia, such as Infobox: military conflict or Template: flag but can't figure it out. Can anyone tell me how I can import Templates or do I have to write my own?

Thanks for any help.

English Wikipedia has extremely complex infoboxes, and they are pretty difficult to import. You'll need a good dose of knowledge of Wikipedia, and several extensions like ParserFunctions, Scribunto, TemplateStyles. And even then, many Infoboxes now have a level of integrations with Wikidata, which you won't have, that might require you to explicitly REMOVE that code from your imported templates. In many cases it will be easier to make your own simpler version of infoboxes.

It may be worth looking at older versions of the infobox, or those from other wikis, which may be less complex.

Sorry for the late reply, but I'm having trouble viewing anything but the documentation. How could I view the source code for the older infobox versions??

Hi try going to the history of that infobox and scrolling down years back (say 2013 or so). Click View History on the template itself.

I found the version and tried to copy the table content, but when I use the template it doesn't have parameters. Can you help?

Which version and which template?

Nevermind. I got it solved.

I tried to make an infobox for the first time (copying it from another public domain wiki) but it told me that it had no parameters despite them being in the code. I even made a documentation page with the parameters but it didn't do anything. Can someone with more knowledge about the endless labyrinth of MediaWiki software help?

Where is it telling you there is no parameters?

If this is visual editor is extension:TemplateData set up?

Oh. It was that simple??

Aw, man. Thanks.

i have updated my MediaWiki box (Ubuntu 18.04 with MediaWiki 1.35 & PHP 5 to Ubuntu 22.04 with MediaWiki 1.42 & PHP 8.1.2).

Everything seems to be fine first, but after a while i detected that "Special Pages" does not work any more.

There is the following error (german version) - can someone help me please with it?

Interner Fehler

[cdbf838bee0ee8981cfaa93f] /wiki/index.php?title=Spezial:Spezialseiten Wikimedia\Assert\ParameterAssertionException: Bad value for parameter $title: should not be empty unless namespace is main

Backtrace:

from /var/www/html/wiki/vendor/wikimedia/assert/src/Assert.php(72)

#0 /var/www/html/wiki/includes/title/TitleValue.php(215): Wikimedia\Assert\Assert::parameter()

#1 /var/www/html/wiki/includes/title/TitleValue.php(169): MediaWiki\Title\TitleValue::assertValidSpec()

#2 /var/www/html/wiki/includes/specialpage/SpecialPage.php(173): MediaWiki\Title\TitleValue->__construct()

#3 /var/www/html/wiki/includes/specialpage/SpecialPage.php(156): MediaWiki\SpecialPage\SpecialPage::getTitleValueFor()

#4 /var/www/html/wiki/includes/specialpage/SpecialPage.php(837): MediaWiki\SpecialPage\SpecialPage::getTitleFor()

#5 /var/www/html/wiki/includes/specials/SpecialSpecialPages.php(83): MediaWiki\SpecialPage\SpecialPage->getPageTitle()

#6 /var/www/html/wiki/includes/specials/SpecialSpecialPages.php(53): MediaWiki\Specials\SpecialSpecialPages->getPageGroups()

#7 /var/www/html/wiki/includes/specialpage/SpecialPage.php(719): MediaWiki\Specials\SpecialSpecialPages->execute()

#8 /var/www/html/wiki/includes/specialpage/SpecialPageFactory.php(1669): MediaWiki\SpecialPage\SpecialPage->run()

#9 /var/www/html/wiki/includes/actions/ActionEntryPoint.php(504): MediaWiki\SpecialPage\SpecialPageFactory->executePath()

#10 /var/www/html/wiki/includes/actions/ActionEntryPoint.php(145): MediaWiki\Actions\ActionEntryPoint->performRequest()

#11 /var/www/html/wiki/includes/MediaWikiEntryPoint.php(199): MediaWiki\Actions\ActionEntryPoint->execute()

#12 /var/www/html/wiki/index.php(58): MediaWiki\MediaWikiEntryPoint->run()

#13 {main}

Kind regards,

Jo

Does it still happen if all extensions are disabled?

Hi,

Content is not shown in the mobile version of my wiki under any header. This happens with all skins, including Minerva which is the mobile default. If no headers (only "paragraph" text) are present in the page, then the entire page is shown correctly (including templates or figures).

Hi,

I cannot find the colour wheel anywhere on Inkscape. I have seen on the help panel that it should be below the "fill" section, but nothing there. I don't have any way to change the colours of my design other than by picking the pre selected colour palettes on the bottom of the screen.

Hi there! This is the support desk for issues relating to the MediaWiki software. I think you are in the wrong place.

Could anybody compare these, or recommend one of them, for MW 1.39?

• Extension:SimpleTooltip - @Fannon
• Extension:SimpleTooltip (Universal-Omega) - @Universal Omega @Techwizzie
• Extension:RegularTooltips - @Yaron Koren

SimpleTooltip worked fine in the past, but I wonder whether to use either of the others now.

I've taken the liberty of pinging some people who I think are involved. Thanks!

I think RegularTooltips is good, but of course I'm biased. I don't know of any problems with it.

Thank you.

I've just seen from the talk page of SimpleTooltip that there's yet another version, by @Fanra, at https://github.com/fanra/simpletooltip purely to get rid of a deprecation warning in MW1.38. The main extension says 1.39+ so I imagine events have overtaken the original need for the fork.

On that note, "SimpleTooltip" says 1.39+ but "SimpleTooltip (Universal-Omega)" says 1.38+ so maybe the same applies to this version too.

If so, then it's going to be a comparison between SimpleTooltip and RegularTooltips!

@Jonathan3: Unfortunately I'm not active in the MediaWiki space anymore because of my new Job. But the SimpleTooltip extension is still maintained by @Planetenxin

I am in the process of merging my other wikis into one. I can easily import the pages from these other wikis, but they are not added to existing categories until a page is saved. This is becoming a rather large wiki and having to save each and every page to fix the categories has become a large task. Is there a way to mass update the categories with the imported pages? The merged wiki is version 1.41.1.

refreshLinks.php cli script will do this

Although in principle they should be added automatically on import, so maybe you are experiencing some sort of bug.

@Andrew Branscom do you have a job runner ? Cause if u do imports without a continuous job runner in the background, you might be behind on processing background jobs

I have no root access to my server. I do have cPanel access. It sounds like refreshLinks.php is what I need. I see it in the maintenance folder, but am not quite sure how to run it. Forgive me for my ignorance in this. Am I able do it from my cPanel or browser?

You don't need root access but you do need shell (also called ssh or terminal) access.

As a work around, if you only have cpanel, sometimes cpanel lets you set cron scripts which can be used as a work around.

I don't have shell access. I have never done anything with cron scripts. My cPanel has a Cron Jobs section that has frequency fields and a command field, but am unsure exactly what to enter. I should mention that there are other databases on my account, like for a phpBB forum. There are a couple of different PHP versions assigned.

I doubt that I can get much help from my hosting service. Another company bought my hosting service and now has lousy support. There is no longer any phone support

My Wikis have pages with code examples and newer versions of the Wikis changed the GeSHi SyntaxHighlight highlighter to requires the installation of Pygments, which broke my highlighting. The new hosting service refuses to install Pygments. I do not bring this up to ask for help with that, but just as an example of how unhelpful their support has been. The previous company had great support.

I had my hosting service run the refreshLinks.php, but it did not help. Note that the only thing that did not work right after importing the pages is the inclusion on the categories. Search works, recent changes work, etc. It does relink with its categories when the page is saved, but we are talking about several 10s of thousands of pages.