Project:Support desk

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Previous page history was archived for backup purposes at Project:Support desk/LQT Archive 1 on 2015-07-30.

I have been maintaining this: Intranet for a while now. It is my company's formal documentation for MW installations so I do not really care what anyone thinks of it (obvs!)

I would be grateful for responses to the following:

• Do I create a OS install step by step with piccies? At the moment I stipulate "install Ubuntu minimal "Bionic" which is a bit terse.
• Do I do a Windows server version? (I've only been wrangling the bloody things for 20 odd years but prefer Linux)
• How do you find my writing style?

The last point is very important, I think. I try to be concise and try to avoid en_GB if I can but am I too technical or too terse or whatever? If you think my docs can be improved in any way, I am happy to see contributions and brutal (constructive) edits and comments.

(PS: Try going to the mw.org home page and looking for installation instructions. You'll likely find this link and start here: Manual:Installation guide That is not my idea of a good start page. That page may well be the first impression that someone gets of MW. I wonder how many wikis are lost to MW because of that? Perhaps this lot: https://mwstake.org/mwstake/wiki/Main_Page might like to look into this)

Perused through it. Everything looks fine.👍

Thanks but please feel free to actively criticise. I really will not be offended.

Hello!

We are doing research on Notable people buried in our cemetery and would like to make "Union Dale Cemetery" searchable on wiki. I tried to create a username to begin doing this but didnt read the full directions before creating a username and am now blocked. Can you help me please.

You'll need to appeal on your Wikipedia talkpage, not here.

I use PAGENAME in a template as part of a URL. However, when the pagename is more than a word (has space) the URL breaks. Is there a way to use it in a URL safe way?

Use Uul0qlni8jnp5kpo, a variant that encodes spaces to make a valid URL

Hi! I want that the recent changes look like this. What I have to do? Thanks!

The solution was the add CSS code to Common.css to hide the header tag for the sorted category groupings.

I want to disable the grouping of categories by their sort key on a categories page. I still want the sorting to happen, but not have the separate sections with headers for each key (i.e. there should be no big letter "A" in front of all the pages that start with the letter A).

I've looked at the Category documentation and talk page and searched the manual and

In your MediaWiki:Common.css, add:

#mw-content-text > div.mw-category-generated > #mw-pages > div > h3 { display: none; }

That did the trick, thanks!!!

Hi all, I am trying to find ways to auto-sort a list of citations (like *{{cite book|title=book A|year=2000}} *{{cite book| book B|year=1990}}) by their year published.

I already know how this can be partly done via sort_list (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Sort_list), which can re-sort a list by item's alphabetical order, in the case of a list of citations, this is usually a sorted list of the authors' last name. However, could something be done to parse out the year within the citation text, and re-sort them by the year (or other keys) as well?

This could be done easier probably via a "wikitable sortable," but it would be great to know what's possible for a list. Thanks!

Hi there,

I am very new to MediaWiki, never touched the thing until this week. :D

I have 8 wikis running on https://www.esportspedia.com and I am having timeout issues on 2 (https://www.esportspedia.com/lol/ and https://pt.esportspedia.com/lol/) of them when submitting a change to a page, the other 6 wikis save pages just fine albeit they are a little slower than I'd like them to be but that's not the main problem right now.

The nginx/fpm-php frontend runs on its own 8CPU 16GB RAM system and the databases & `runJobs` scripts for the 8 wikis run on a 16CPU 32GB RAM system.

I've looked at increasing the fpm-php timeout to 300 and also tried using `set_time_limit(120);` in my LocalSettings.php but neither option appears to have any impact what so ever.

I looked on your site and found nothing wrong with it. Maybe it is your computer.

Is that a serious answer or are you just a troll?

@Antek Baranski No I am definitely not a troll. It is my mission to keep wikis free of trolls. If you check your site maybe on another computer, then it might work. However as far as I can see there is nothing wrong. Also I noticed that you are hosting on a hosting provider. If you have further issues, you should let them know.

The behaviour only occurs when you EDIT pages as I wrote in the first post, and its been confirmed by at least 12+ people, so how you were able to verify this I don't understand because unless you are already registered as a contributor you won't be able to edit anything.

As for hosting, the wikis are running on an EC2 instance behind CloudFlare, so I am not entirely sure what you mean by a `hosting provider`.

Okay never mind. I am going to remove myself before a dispute arises. Please do not reply to me any further.

How long does it take when you submit the edit until you get the 504 error? Does it match the configured timeout? It could be on different layers: Cloudflare has a timeout, the webserver (nginx, apache...) another, php-fpm another... You'll hit the lowest value from all of them.

About the slowness, I'm not sure if setting a debug log for a couple of requests would give timestamps on the debug log, which should give some indication on where it seems to spend most of the time. Manual:Profiling would definitively help in diagnosing the problem.

The timeout occurs on 2 fronts, CloudFlare & php-fpm.

CloudFlare responds that the 'nginx' server replied with a 504 after 60 seconds which is the default nginx proxy timeout, which if memory serves me right is what is used when passing a request on to php-fpm, I've bumped up nginx timeouts like this:

        client_header_timeout 300;

        client_body_timeout 300;

        fastcgi_read_timeout 300;

        proxy_read_timeout 300;

        proxy_send_timeout 300;

And I also modified the php & php-fpm timeouts to be 300 seconds.

On the php-fpm I am seeing the following 5 recurrent issues:

[19-Feb-2019 16:17:38 UTC] PHP Fatal error:  Maximum execution time of 300 seconds exceeded in /home/docs/master_wiki/includes/exception/MWExceptionHandler.php on line 521

[19-Feb-2019 17:58:58 UTC] PHP Fatal error:  Maximum execution time of 300 seconds exceeded in /home/docs/master_wiki/includes/exception/MWExceptionHandler.php on line 388

[19-Feb-2019 16:27:01 UTC] PHP Fatal error:  Maximum execution time of 300 seconds exceeded in /home/docs/master_wiki/includes/exception/MWExceptionHandler.php on line 154

[19-Feb-2019 18:03:35 UTC] PHP Fatal error:  Maximum execution time of 300 seconds exceeded in /home/docs/master_wiki/includes/json/FormatJson.php on line 144

[19-Feb-2019 18:53:01 UTC] PHP Fatal error:  Maximum execution time of 300 seconds exceeded in /home/docs/master_wiki/includes/exception/MWExceptionHandler.php on line 154

None of those changes seems to have had any meaningful impact

Try the debug log thing. Set up a debug log, perform an action that takes that long time, and disable it. Then inspect its contents and try to identify any possible problem from the log.

I was recently blocked for half a year and was told to use {{avblockering}} on my discussion page but how to do that if I'm blocked? It doesn't work!

According to https://whatismyipaddress.com/ip/117.242.147.69 this IP address is an open proxy; see m:No open proxies. You appear to be referring to a block on the Swedish Wikipedia, which we are unable to help you with.

Hi,

I would like to know how to enter the function of creating new pages? How to create a link to create new pages (articles)? Do I have to enter some code to LocalSettings.php file or use an extension?  

I have installed the "InputBox" plugin and on this page: Help:Starting a new page is the code for creating a new page "Using article creation template", but how can I create a new page at all? What should I click?

I would like to have a link to create a page immediately, something like Upload file in Tools tab.

I'm a beginner at MediaWiki.

Please help me.

What I did for my wiki is that I put in a link on the sidebar. Using the MediaWiki:Sidebar page I put this code into the side bar page ** Create Page|Create Page. Now you will need to make a page called Create Page. In the page input the following wiki text <inputbox> type=create break=no </inputbox> . Then you should be good to go.

Thank you for the information.

"What I did for my wiki is that I put in a link on the sidebar. Using the MediaWiki:Sidebar page I put this code into the side bar page".

How can I put the same link? How to do it exactly?

Is this explained here?

Manual:Configuration settings

1. Install Extension:InputBox.
2. Browse to any page on your Wiki, in the address bar of your browser, replace the Wiki page name with: Project:Create Page.
3. Click on the Create tab and then enter the following text: <inputbox> type=create break=no </inputbox>.
4. Go to your Wiki's version of the page MediaWiki:Sidebar.
5. Add: ** Project:Create Page|Create Page (better to replace "Project" with your site name).

You can also use some extensions. See Extension:Create Page and Extension:CreatePageUw.

1. I have this extension installed.

2. Explain it to me more clearly. Example link: https://www.golarze.pl/golarzopedia/index.php?title=Brzytwa.&action=edit&redlink=1 how to change this link in "Project: Create Page"?

In this way?

https://www.golarze.pl/golarzopedia/index.php?title=Golarzopedia:Create_Page

3. If so then after going to the editor and after entering this code an error occurred: Input box type "create break=no" not recognized. Please specify "create", "comment", "search", "search2" or "fulltext".

4. Can you explain it more clearly? I do not really understand.

////////////////////////////////////

I installed this extension https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:CreatePageUw and the link to create a new page is located in the special pages tab. How can I add this link to the Tools tab on the main page?

And in the Configuration tab is such a code, should I add this code to LocalSettings.php file?

$wgCreatePageUwUseVE = true;

In golarze.pl/golarzopedia/index.php?title=Golarzopedia:Create_Page , instead of <inputbox> type=create break=no </inputbox>, use:

<inputbox>
type=create
break=no
</inputbox>

For Extension:CreatePageUw, try adding the ** Special:CreatePage|Create Page in your MediaWiki:Sidebar page. Replace "Special:CreatePage" with whatever link to create a new page is located in the special pages tab.

Since you're not using Extension:VisualEditor, there is no need to add $wgCreatePageUwUseVE = true;.

Thank you for the explanation.

To go to edit the sidebar should to do it this way:

.../index.php?title=MediaWiki:Sidebar

Only now I realized how to do it. :)

I managed to add this link to this sidebar but I would like to know whether I can add this link below to the Tools tab?

https://i.imgur.com/WAbZBG1.png

I added the same post by case as a guest. How can I report that post to be deleted?

From Topic:Scrgphbajks15l61:

"Toolbox items are not editable. They're generated based on MediaWiki/skin/extensions.

If you know PHP you could use the BaseTemplateToolbox hook to modify the items in PHP"

Some hacks are mentioned at Manual talk:Interface/Sidebar, if you want to give them a try.

A more convenient method would be to create a new section in the sidebar:

* Actions
** Special:CreatePage|Create New Article

That post was deleted. Yes that I how you edit the sidebar. I am not aware of a way that you can edit the tools section without going deep into the backend and risking breaking the toolbox function.

@AhmadF.Cheema

I understand. Thank you for the explanation.

I would like to know if the "Create Page" link can be set to be visible only after logging in?

I would like to know how can I put other links in sidebar? E.g. forum link etc.

@Examknow

This post is still visible, it is hidden. I do not want my IP to be publicly visible in that post.

For details, see Manual:Interface/Sidebar and Manual:Interface/Sidebar#Change sidebar content when logged in (PHP).

Thank you for the explanation. I would like to hide only the "Create Page" link for anonymous. This code hides the remaining links. That is: Home page, Recent changes, Random page. Is there any way to hide only the "Create Page" link for anonymous users?

Manual:Interface/Sidebar#Change sidebar content when logged in (PHP)

Try Manual:Interface/Sidebar/Hacks, maybe it still works.

@AhmadF.Cheema

After entering this code to LocalSettings.php file an error occurred.

https://i.imgur.com/qZC5JjJ.png

First try the workaround mentioned in Manual talk:Interface/Sidebar/Hacks.

This solution also does not work.

Links disappeared: Home page, Forum, Recent changes, Random page and Create page. And occur a mistake visible on the screen.

https://i.imgur.com/p5gDBBv.png

I think that rather there is no solution.

Did you create the MediaWiki:anon_sidebar page?

As a last resort, try Show a different sidebar for anonymous users. This is a little more recent.

I did not create MediaWiki:anon_sidebar page. Do you have a hidden link "Create Page" for anonymous users in your Wiki? I ask out of curiosity. I see that there is a lot of try with this.

It is possible that it will be left as it is. Or I will remove the Create page from navigation link.

You should try some of the extensions given by @AhmadF.Cheema:

When you say "Links disappeared: Home page, Forum, Recent changes...", is this for anonymous users or logged-in users. If it is only for anonymous users, then this probably is the expected behaviour. Anonymous users will see the sidebar defined through the MediaWiki:anon_sidebar page, in the absence of which they will see p5gDBBv.png including the "mistake".

I personally have never set-up a hidden link "Create Page" for anonymous users, seems much more trouble than it's worth.

This account has been created by mistake ( and I am very sorry for that ) . Actually the user name is not even mine and it may be kind of problematic. I didn't contribute yet and I would like to have the permission to change the username of remove the account of possible. How can I do it on mediawiki.org?

I tried but seems that I don't have the permission to merge the account with another one, or delete the account.

I need your advise. Thanks !

See Steward_requests/Username_changes.