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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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 Add topic.

Categories not sorting content properly and next/previous page broken?

I don't know how to describe the problem succinctly, so I'll give a simple example to start: https://fireemblemwiki.org/wiki/Category:Navigation_templates this category has 222 pages.

If you click the "next" button, you are taken to a page with only one categorized item, 21 pages are missing from the listing.

Then, if you click previous page, it sorts the categories starting from A instead of 0 and gives "The following 193 pages are in this category, out of 222 total.", if you click previous again (meaning the category is 2 pages long going forward but 3 pages long going backwards) you get a page showing entries sorted as 0 to A comprising "The following 29 pages are in this category, out of 222 total.".

Additionally, alphabetization seems to be behaving oddly. New files are being put at the end of the category, sorted alphabetically. So for example, If I upload "Carl.png" to ExampleCategory, the category will become "Bob.png, Sam.png, Tim.png, Carl.png". Instead of the expected "Bob.png, Carl.png, Sam.png, Tim.png". This has progressed to "Bob.png, Sam.png, Tim.png, Alfred.png, Carl.png, Dan.png, Ed.png" in more active categories.

Example of the alphabetization issue: fireemblemwiki.org/wiki/Category:Yutona_Heroes_War_Chronicles_portraits

"Portrait yuni trs01.png, Portrait zacharia trs01.png, Portrait zeek 01 trs01.png, Portrait charlent trs01.png, Portrait golgotha trs01.png"

What is gong on here?

I'm only an editor so I'm not sure how to diagnose this, and when I asked the backend guys they said none of the extensions should be breaking categories, and that it might be a 1.43 feature change? But I don't understand what this feature would be.

I don't think it's being caused by anything obvious like sortkeys or cache issues, it's been like this for about six months. I've also tried a few things like editing the category page with some minor edit to make it update, but that doesn't seem to help. It also happens if I look around the category pages while logged out.

~2026-25342-15 (talk) 02:02, 25 April 2026 (UTC)

The sysadmin needs to run the Manual:updateCollation.php script. On some MediaWiki upgrades, there's an update on how characters are sorted, leaving inconsistencies with previous ways to sort them. For performance reasons, the category sort order is stored in the database in binary form derived from the collation. It won't change on page purge, you'll have to remove the page from the category and add it again, but this script does this refresh internally. Since I know who hosts this wiki, I'll ping them to let them know about the problem and solution. Ciencia Al Poder (talk) 08:35, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

Good starting doc for editing templates

Any recommendations for good starting points for editing templates on a MediaWiki install? I've found

• https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Templates
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:A_quick_guide_to_templates
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Template

but I'm finding them challenging to learn from. Are there any I've missed? Maybe some "unofficial" documents or articles or blogposts I should read? Bsammon (talk) 00:43, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

A good starting point is looking at existing templates. Ask a specific question about what you're trying to do :-) Jonathan3 (talk) 12:54, 29 April 2026 (UTC)

use also the sandbox and write testcases to see how parameters react and follow the code source

🚨 Christian 🇫🇷 FR (talk) 10:53, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

1.43 CheckUser Internal Error

When attempting to execute CheckUser inquiries on 1.43, I can run the "Get IP Addresses" for a registered account and the "Get Users" for an IP address without issue. But attempting to run the "Get Actions" for either registered or unregistered, as well as attempting to use Special:Investigate, both throw the fatal exception/internal error:

[afDsJx7ifTZnjjMNwX4hMwAFmxo] /index.php?title=Special:CheckUser Error: Class "Firebase\JWT\JWT" not found

Yet strangely these actions are still logged in the CU log, even though I can't view any data from them. The Boston Railfan (talk) 17:23, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

There's a similar question here - Topic:Wgcydicxa790v7io - and the answer was to run composer update --no-dev. Jonathan3 (talk) 12:53, 29 April 2026 (UTC)

Marking [sic] text or creating a custom tag

I'm using my wiki to collaboratively transcribe old documents. With this, I need to balance accurately transcribing the text and fixing outdated or incorrect usages. Is there a way I can markup this text? And if one doesn't already exist, is it possible to make my own custom tags?

"The ((Berenstein|Berenstain)) Bears is a children's literature franchise." ~2026-26583-63 (talk) 12:46, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

Is it possible to write a custom parser extension that registers new bracket syntaxes? I want to avoid heavy syntax like {{#sic:Berenstein|Berenstain}} or <sic>Berenstein|Berenstain</sic>. ~2026-26583-63 (talk) 12:57, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

Distinguish articles within categories

Hello! I am a user of the Kurdish Wiktionary. My problem is that several variants of the same word appear in the same category without it being possible to distinguish them. It sometimes happens that within the same category, there are more variants than standard words...

I would therefore like to know if it is technically possible to display a page using a given template in a category with a specific color or symbol (as is the case for page redirects which are displayed in italics)? Ghybu (talk) 16:06, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

There's no clean way to do that, AFAIK. Most you can do is to set CSS (with Extension:TemplateStyles) on the category page to match links by title and style them accordingly, but you'll have to update the CSS to add more variants as those pages get created, which is not feasible and a maintenance burden. Ciencia Al Poder (talk) 08:25, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

Add topic

This page says: "4. To start a new thread, click the box with the text Add topic." But... there IS no such button. - Erik Baas (talk) 07:27, 2 May 2026 (UTC)

@Erik Baas: It is the 3rd tab at the very top of this page, beside Mediawiki.org ; order on EN version of the page is :

Read | Edit | Add topic | View history

-- 🚨 Christian 🇫🇷 FR (talk) 10:39, 7 May 2026 (UTC)

PageSaveComplete Hook and rendered HTML

I'm trying to store the rendered html of articles in my main namespace. Right now I'm trying to save them as a file trying to get it to work, but then I plan on saving it in a database. I'm using MediaWiki 1.43.8.

$wgHooks['PageSaveComplete'][] = function($wikiPage, $user, $summary, $flags, $revisionRecord, $editResult){
	if($wikiPage->getTitle()->getNamespace() !== NS_MAIN) return true;
	$title = $wikiPage->getTitle();
	$pageName = $title->getPrefixedDBkey();
	$services = MediaWiki\MediaWikiServices::getInstance();
	$content = $revisionRecord->getContent(MediaWiki\Revision\SlotRecord::MAIN);
	$renderer = $services->getContentRenderer();
	file_put_contents('test1.html', 'test 1');
	$parserOptions = $services->getParserFactory()->getParserOptionsFactory()->newOptions();
	file_put_contents('test2.html', 'test 2');
	$parserOutput = $renderer->getParserOutput($content, $title, null, $parserOptions);
	$html = $parserOutput->getText();
	file_put_contents('test3.html', $html);
	return true;};

I think the error is between test 1 and test 2 as the first file writes and the second doesn't. I don't get any server log or browser errors. ~2026-26696-50 (talk) 22:45, 2 May 2026 (UTC)

Is the Special:RestSandbox page available for third-party wikis (i.e. external installations)?

I asked this before on the API:REST API page but didn't get any response there. I read somewhere that it will be available on MW 1.46, can anyone confirm this? Draheinsunvale (talk) 22:14, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

MySQL 8.4+ Compatibility

MySQL 8.4 has changed the way auto_increment works. Will this affect MediaWiki compatibility?

Data Types & Constraints: 8.4 prohibits AUTO_INCREMENT on FLOAT/DOUBLE columns. Molsen7970 (talk) 18:16, 5 May 2026 (UTC)

Mail automatique création de compte

Mediawiki 1.39.13

PHP 8.3.30

Maria DB 10.11.14

hébergement IONOS

Bonjour depuis quelques temps (apres fevrier 2026) mon mediawiki n'envoi plus de mail lors de la création de compte (le compte est pourtant cree, c'est la meme chose avec la fonction mot de passe oublié

comment peut on régler ce problème ?

Merci Schub srx (talk) 08:39, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

Il est important de distinguer entre "il ne les envoie pas" et "il n'est pas reçu". Si l'adresse mail est réellement valide, essayer de changer pour l'adresse mail d'un autre opérateur, investiguer autour du username. -- 🚨 Christian 🇫🇷 FR (talk) 11:48, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

Merci, oui je précise, n'est pas reçu, mais j'ai essayé avec plusieurs creation de compte avec mes adresses Schub srx (talk) 11:51, 9 May 2026 (UTC)

Ca reste bizarre car le mail contient un lien de validation qui permet de valider la création; de quel user sagit-il ? . --🚨 Christian 🇫🇷 FR (talk) 18:32, 10 May 2026 (UTC)

здравствуйте подскажите пожалуйста я могу на телефоне сделать ~2026-28262-40 (talk) 04:40, 11 May 2026 (UTC)