I've got featured items slideshow installed on the home page of www.coastalprovisionsmarket.com.
The article links are broken, and I can't figure out why. The href links seem to add the article number to the article alias so the link doesn't work. Can you please help? The site is already live. Thanks!

This appears to be a problem with your SEF urls. You should check that you have set them up correctly, for example that the SEF plugin is enabled, and the htaccess.txt file has been renamed to .htaccess.

This is not a bug with the module. The module uses the standard JRoute method to create links, this means it just supplies the standard non-SEF URL, and leaves it up to Joomla and whatever SEF URL extension you are using to translate these into SEF URLS. It is with those that your problem lies.

One thing that you might try is, in the module parameters, look for the one on the right hand column where it says, 'Select a menu item'. Set that to your choice of page.

The effect of this will be to pass an itemid in the link URL, that might change the generated SEF url. I can't guarantee that will solve the problem though.

Thanks so much for your response. It is, indeed, an SEF issue. When I turned off SEF, the links worked fine. I also tried changing the menu item, but that didn't work. The problem is that I need to enable SEF. SEF plugin is enabled, htaccess is fine. All my other links work fine. Do you have any other ideas on why the module is looking for a different page name? The link is looking for a page with the following address: category ID-category alias/article ID-article alias. Those addresses don't exist. I'm desperate for a resolution!

As I explain, it is not the module that is doing this, it is your SEF extension, this is where your problem lies.

The module just creates URLs of the form 'index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=37:where-did-the-mambots-go&catid=28:current-users&Itemid=44' - it is your SEF extension that translates them into SEF URLS, if you are still having problems then that is where the problem lies.

There is more information about SEF URLS here: http://docs.joomla.org/SEF_URLs_in_Joomla!_1.5, there are some more suggestions that you might try here, in particular make sure you have 'use Apache mod rewrite' to 'yes' (assuming you are using an Apache server), also that the 'live_site' is set correctly.

There is one further thing that you might try, depending on whether you are using Joomla 1.5 or 1.6. For Joomla 1.5 you need to edit the module file 'includes/modFeaturedItemsSlideshowJContentHelper.php', line 349, change it from



to



If you are using Joomla 1.6 then the file you need to edit is 'modFeaturedItemsSlideshowJ16ContentHelper.php', and the line you need to change is line 344. This substitutes a more simplistic version of the URL, it is possible that your SEF extension may find it easier to understand.

However you will do much better to try and make the SEF URLS work properly, as you may find that you get other unexpected errors on your site otherwise.

Thanks. I appreciate your patience. The reason I'm frustrated is that all my SEF URL's seem to working fine and all my settings are correct. I tried changing the code per your suggestion, but now I get a 404 instead of a 500. At this point I don't have the time to find another module to use. Any chance you could look at my site for a reasonable fee and see what you can do? I'd much appreciate it.

I'll be happy to take a look at your site. There is no need for a fee at this stage, it wouldn't be required unless I have to undertake significant work.

Please send login details to the address you received your order confirmation from.

Hi. Apparently the problem is that it's on the front page. If I use the module on any other page, it works fine, but on the home page the link is broken. Any ideas? Thanks!

I checked your site, I think that the problem is being caused by one of the other extensions that you are using, you seem to have several system plugins, some of them seem to do some URL rewriting.

It's definitely not a problem with the module, I tested on one of our own testing servers, it works fine even on the front page with the Joomla SEF.

Whatever, I managed to solve the problem. In fact the solution I suggested before, changing the link generator to



fixed the problem. I think you must have made a mistake with the code when you tried it. All works now.

You're the best! Thanks so much!