I had a  joomla site i was developing for a client recently but by the time i decided to extend it in a sophisticated way as i always do with my sites, but to my surprise i couldn't upload any module as it keeps producing errors like "Please enter a package directory".  Actually this gave me a little headache because i could not imagine having a site i can't module up the way i like but after looking around , i finally solved the problem.

Now lets follow up the errors associated with these one after the other.

ELIMINATING THE FTP ERRORS THAT APPEARS WHEN YOU TRY TO INSTALL A MODULE.

• Go to Admin control panel
• Go to" Site" on the top menu
• Go to "global configuration"
• Click on "Server"  on the top menu
• Scroll down and get to "FTP SETTINGS"
• Juts enter your normal FTP settings by your host and then save.

This will elimate those FTP errors you get in red colours when trying to upload a module. It will also help to solve most error problems you get  around the site related to FTP.

UPLOADING AND INSTALLING  YOUR EXTENSION FILES SUCCESSFULLY;

There are two approaches to this.

1. Just download the extension you want to install, unzip the files

Open up your ftp program or root folder in your server and then create a folder and call it any name, then upload the files you want to install to that folder, then go back to your install/uninstall under extensions menu and then use the option  "install from directory" Change the directory url to your latest folder where your inteded files are stored i.e  /home/user/public_html/your new folder

Then click on install and you are done.

2 The second approach which is the simplest one is to simply dowload the extension, then do not unzip it or if unzipped, use a zip program to zip up the folder and then use the "Upload package file" option to upload  and install the  extension.

Afterwards you can click on module option and then configure and enable the actual module installed.

If you are having problems with these please let me know by leaving a comment here.

 Hope this helps out.

Hello All,

Thanks for your recent emails concerning some issues in joomla but let me share some of them here with you.

PROBLEM: you posted an article and all of a sudden your joomla page does not load very well anymore or does a partial loading with some of your modules disappearing on your page.

SOLUTION: The major culprit could be the source of the article you posted, if you posted an article which you copied from microsoft word, the probabilty that you would be importing unnecessary codes into your post would be great. To address this issue, simply click on the "html"  icon  on your editor and then edit the post manually by removing all the unwanted tags. It would be easily fixed if you have a good knowledge of html but if you dont have then dont panic.

You can simply paste the article in a notepad and then afterwards, recopy it and then paste in the joomla editor and you should be okay.

Hope this helps out.

Have you just uploaded a new template in your joomla site and you just cant get it to appear even after choosing it as the default template?, well how did i solve that problem?. It's very easy, just get to your template directory in your sever and give it a write permission  777. Actually thats how i was able to solve my own problem.

Dont panic about that next time , just remember it may be a folder permission problem and so please try the above mentioned solution.

Note: In the Latest joomla versions starting from 2.5 you may look into using the 'Discover' option or check your template xml file to see that the template names are well confirgured. It must match the template name in the file.

Recently another client of mine was having so many issues with his joomla site and this was really really driving him mad. The major problem was his host that keeps turning off his site due to the fact that it is causing overloading to the system on a shared hosting. Please note that this same topic was previously written about in this post here but this is just an update on a related issue.

Problem: Please see a list of problems that you may be experiencing with joomla server overload:

1. My site loads too slowly

2.It gives you an error page when it loads

3. I'm regularly switched off by my host and i have been asked to turn on my cache before my site would be put back online

4. My site loads into a white dis organized page (first check that you are not importing articles from a microsoft word)

5. I have been warned by my host that my site is using too much resources.

Solutions:

1. I would recommend that you get rid of some un-necessary modules you dont need and delete them entirely from the site and server as these may be calling up some database queries even if they are disabled ( A case of bad programming).

2. Another thing is to go to your hosting provider and check if you need to move to a bigger server space either a VPS or Dedicated server, i know most hosting companies would like to push you to do this but make sure you are seeking the best advice. Check your Bandwidth limit used up monthly and your remaining disk space and then determine if you will really heed their advice and try to get a second and third opinion from an expert in the related field, you can do this by simply visiting hosting forums online and asking questions. Most forum members are usually very helpful and would offer you the best and truthful advice they can give.

3. If your case is the case where you are using up too much resources, please take note, if you are on a shared hosting or VPS, please tell your hosting provider to  help you delete your trash bin, usually you would not have access to this trash bin , you may think you have deleted all your trash from cpanel admin but really that is not the case. A helpful hosting admin was able to dig around the problem and found that my client had 18 GB worth of trash not deleted. Once this was done, the site's speed was up again and there was little issue with resource. so it is really advisable to let your host make sure all the trash has been deleted.

Thanks and watch out for more update.