We have seen this error with Concrete 5.5.1

You try to setup Concrete 5, and get strange SQL errors during the installation:

If installing with an empty site, like this

you get:

mysql error: [1048: Column 'uID' cannot be null] in EXECUTE("INSERT INTO Config (cfKey,cfValue,uID) VALUES ('NEWSFLOW_LAST_VIEWED','FIRSTRUN',NULL)")

If installing with Sample content with Blog:

The error you get is:

Catchable fatal error: Argument 1 passed to ContentImporter::importPageAreas() must be an instance of Page, boolean given, called in /concrete/libraries/content/importer.php on line 75 and defined in /concrete/libraries/content/importer.php on line 197.

Solution:

You don't run Varnish by any chance, do you? We do, and we had it set up to … dispose of some cookies. The solution is, in Varnish' case, to enable pass-through for the host you are installing on.

You want to enable cookies.

Explanation:

The code which breaks is located in concrete5.5.1\concrete\models\package\starting_point.php

Config::save('SITE', SITE);
Config::save('SITE_APP_VERSION', APP_VERSION);
$u = new User();
$u->saveConfig('NEWSFLOW_LAST_VIEWED', 'FIRSTRUN');

As you see, this is the first time a User is created and used.

The User class is defined in concrete5.5.1\concrete\models\user.php

if (isset($_SESSION['uID'])) {
$this->uID = $_SESSION['uID'];
$this->uName = $_SESSION['uName'];
$this->uTimezone = $_SESSION['uTimezone'];
if (isset($_SESSION['uDefaultLanguage'])) {
$this->uDefaultLanguage = $_SESSION['uDefaultLanguage'];
}
$this->superUser = ($_SESSION['uID'] == USER_SUPER_ID) ? true : false;
} else {
$this->uID = null;
$this->uName = null;
$this->superUser = false;
$this->uDefaultLanguage = null;
$this->uTimezone = null;
}
$this->uGroups = $this->_getUserGroups();
if (!isset($args[2])) {
$_SESSION['uGroups'] = $this->uGroups;
}
}

The constructor checks in the Session for a valid user ID. If no user ID is found, it is set to zero. This happens if you throw away the cookies! Because the session is stored in them.

HTH. Feel free to comment on similar errors and solutions.

For a newbie, it's a bit tricky to understand how to purge old content from Varnish. Here's a description of what works for me:

Add these code snippets to your Varnish configuration file, reload Varnish:

/etc/init.d/varnish reload

This will "install" the PURGE command. Modify the ACL (access control list) as appropriate. Mine is:

acl purge {
"localhost";
"127.0.0.1";
"varnish server IP";
}

Where you need to replace the Varnish server IP with the IP of your Varnish server.

Next, (thanks to this article!) an easy method from the command line of your Varnish server:

curl -X PURGE http://catfind.it/

Replace catfind.it with your URL. The -X tells curl to replace the GET method with the PURGE method. BTW, you could call the PURGE method anything you'd like, ie. CACTUS – just set up the VCL configuration appropriately.

If you want some other server to be able to purge, you need to add it to your ACL.

You need curl to be installed. It's easily done on Debian / Ubuntu via

apt-get install curl

(as root).

What about the other methods?

• telnetting into the server (telnet localhost 80) does not work for me, as it drops the connection before I'm finished with typing. Probably there is a way to set up telnet to transmit a certain string, if you want to, share it with us here.
• Purging using the admin CLI of Varnish NEVER worked for me. Either Varnish has changed it's interface in newer versions, or I need some further configuration to enable it. Again, if you know the ropes, please share your knowledge with us!

  varnishadm -T 127.0.0.1:secretport purge req.url == "/"

  yields

  Unknown request.
  Type 'help' for more info.

URL Shortening is all the rage now. Sometimes you want to give people ridiculously long URLs, which might also be subject to change.

So you want to do it with C5, don't you?

Great, you think – there's the "add external link" menu option in Concrete's sitemap. Unfortunately it does not work the way you expect it to – it just adds the link to the Navigation, but no page alias to point to the external page (i.e. http://www.synapse-redaktion.de/FaceBook won't work after adding a "FaceBook" external link).

What to do to solve this dilemma?

My suggestion is to use both: add a (hidden) page "FaceBook" which does header JavaScript forwarding to the other page, so you can give out the links to the people, and a "real external link" so you don't have to rely on JavaScript for most of your visitors.

The SiteMap will look like this:

Adding custom attributes: (Header Extra Content, Exclude from Page List, Exclude from Nav)

The page's setup:

The script is easy:

<script type="text/javascript">
<!–
window.location = "http://www.surfnext.com"
//–>
</script>

with surfnext.com being the URL you are forwarding to.

If you have the time, you might want to add a static link or icon to the page (/*comment*/ the window.location = … part to be able to edit the page!) in case some person has their JavaScript turned off.

For my worldwide Internet access project surfnext.com I developed an extension for MediaWiki to use amMap.

What is amMap?

amMap is a pretty cool Flash-based map which allows you to display geographical information. Check out the examples on amMap.com. It has been used on many pages world-wide, and now – thanks to SurfNext's needs – it is coming to MediaWiki!

What is MediaWiki?

It is the Wiki software which is behind Wikipedia and many other major wikis. SurfNext.com is also based on MediaWiki. Ah, the power of free software!

Why Flash, why amMap?

Because there is no free JavaScript-based map out there, which is not based on tiles. (Please post a link if you know any vector-based JavaScript map !!!)

Unfortunately iDevices (iPhone, etc) do not have Flash capabilities. Thus, you can't see the amMap on them.

Android has Flash support.

Download & Credits

Download version 0.5. (amMap v. 2.5.7 is included).

amMap requires you to leave the link to amMap (inside the map) intact, or to buy a commercial license.

I ask you to provide a back-link to my project SurfNext.com, if this extension is of value to you.

This extension is still in early beta, use at your own risk. Post comments about the extension on this blog page, thank you!

Installation

snAmmap requires MediaWiki 1.17 or higher, as it uses ResourceLoader. (Feel free to fork a version for earlier MediaWikis).

An alternative, of course, is to upgrade your Wiki. It is advisable, as the new release sports significant speed enhancements.

• Put the snAmmap folder in your extensions folder.
• Add require_once("$IP/extensions/snAmmap/snAmmap.php"); to your LocalSettings.php
• If you want to, you can create custom data and settings files and put them somewhere in your Wiki installation path. (i.e. a folder custom)

Usage

Currently snAmmap only supports one map per page. After you have installed the extension, use the following tag in your Wiki where you want to include the map:

<ammap height="500px" width="500px" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" data_file="/custom/data.xml" settings_file="/custom/settings.xml">Placeholder text</ammap>

None of the tag's attributes are required, there are sensible defaults for them (falling back on the data_file and settings_file provided with amMap, for instance.)

• height => sets the height of the map. Can be a percentage
• width => sets the width. Can also be a percentage.
• bgcolor => sets the initial background color, which can be modified in the settings file later.
• data_file => sets the path (URL!) for the data_file. Can be a full URL with hostname, but you have to enable cross-site scripting, which is dangerous. Use a file from your server, preferably.
• settings_file => sets the path for the settings_file

See the documentation of amMap for more details and information what you can modify.

Live Example

SurfNext.com uses the snAmmap extension on the main page in conjunction with custom data and settings files for a map which links to Wiki pages. It also has a dropdown menu from which you can select the individual countries by name, which also links to the Wiki pages.

SurfNext shows you how to obtain Internet access everywhere in the world. Feel free to join and participate!

Feel free to comment about SurfNext on this blog page.

In Concrete 5, TinyMCE is used as an editor for Content blocks. If you have Privoxy installed with the default settings, crucial parts of this editor will be blocked, and you would be unable to edit the Content block properly. (no editor appears, you see a small box with the HTML instead).

You can verify that it's indeed Privoxy which is doing it, by checking the Network tab of Dragonfly or Firebug in Opera or FireFox, Privoxy will add a status message to files which have been blocked.

To fix this problem, edit your user.action file (located in the application's toplevel directory), and add a new line under the { fragile } section:

{ fragile }
#.forbes.com
/concrete/js/tiny_mce/plugins/.*
/updates/concrete.*

This should unblock all Concrete 5 – based sites.

Update (23.10.2011): The fix now works with updated Concrete 5 sites.