1.5.4 Duplicate Titles
Coordinator Blog
Written by Anthony Ferrara   

Many community members have pointed out an error in 1.5.4 with duplicate titles. This issue affects both content and contact views (article layout, and contact detail layout to be specific). We are aware of the problem and are working on a clean, simple way to rectify it. The plan is to fix this issue and release 1.5.5 in the coming weeks. Until then, you can use a layout override in the template to bypass the issue.

The reason for the issue

Since the days of Joomla! 1.5 RC 3, Joomla! has dealt with page titles inconsistently. Some components dealt with it one way, while others did another. At times the parameters were ignored completely. This created several issues, some of which impact SEO, all of which were frustrating. In 1.5.4, we changed all the page titles to behave in a smooth, consistent manner across the entire system. This is a huge step forward, as it really starts to unify the behavior and make Joomla! much more consistent and predictable to administrate.

Our testing process had multiple people testing these patches to make sure it wouldn't break anything. But, we missed the duplicate title issue when testing. The squad has already started talking about how to ensure this doesn't happen again. We recognize this duplicate page title problem and are working on rectifying it, as soon as possible.

Using layout overrides to fix it

A member of the community (Tibor Tóth) actually found an excellent method of fixing the issue without hacking the core! He came up with the idea to use layout overrides to change the display (NOTE: Your third party template may already do that for you). For more information on how to actually use the layout overrides, see the forum post about it. This is a very fast, and effective way to fix this issue until 1.5.5 comes out.

How to prevent these kind of issues

For those of you who don't know, we have a team in the development working group called the Bug Squad. We are comprised of around 20 to 30 members (coders, designers, and testers). We test every single commit that goes into the 1.5 code base. We care very much about the quality of Joomla!. The team was designed to help stabilize and mature the 1.5 code-base.

We need your help! We are always on the lookout for new, eager individuals to help us locate and test issues such as this! If you can program, great! If not, we still need your help! If you're interested in helping us out, contact me (Anthony Ferrara) or Sam Moffatt for more information.

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  1. avatar Brazilian makes this comment

    Monday, 10 November 2008

    Thanks for information.

  2. avatar Dennis makes this comment

    Wednesday, 27 August 2008

    I have another type of problem with Joomla 1.5.6 and a 3rd party template (but switching to one of the bundled templates does not help): the main menu is duplicated (second instance just below the first one). Any ideas how to fix that? I have mtwMigrated the database from Joomla 1.0.12 into 1.5.6 clean install, but in the Menus > Main Menu screen I just see the single list of the menu items. Any help appreciated!

  3. avatar Arghadip makes this comment

    Wednesday, 13 August 2008

    Please tell me, how the blog can be integrated using Joomla! In this blog, the users should be able to put their comment from the front end of their website. As well as, the administrator will have a capability to approve or disapprove this comment.
    Also, the blog should have to be added from the back end also.

    I am using Joomla! 5.1.4

  4. avatar spencer makes this comment

    Monday, 11 August 2008

    did my note go threw not sure

  5. avatar spencer makes this comment

    Monday, 11 August 2008

    how do i intergrate joomla ad flash chat please be in detail as i am not the brightest guy thanks :P

  6. avatar Paul Flynn makes this comment

    Wednesday, 30 July 2008

    Whoops... **not** when creating the Article itself, but when creating the menu item for the Article in question.

    Cheers

  7. avatar Paul Flynn makes this comment

    Wednesday, 30 July 2008

    When creating an Article simply uncheck 'Show Page Title' in the Paramaters (System) menu and the bold title doesn't show...didn't think this was a bug, because it was such a small thing to change it.

    There you go!

  8. avatar Amy Stephen makes this comment

    Thursday, 24 July 2008

    I do ***NOT*** recommend anyone use the nightly test versions linked to above on their productions sites. The current nightly is ***NOT*** the final release. IMPORTANT changes are coming. It will not be long - we are talking days - please wait for the release.

  9. avatar Amy Stephen makes this comment

    Thursday, 24 July 2008

    Eric - It is not a good idea to throw in a new topic hoping it will get our attention. Your search link is pulling up a number of hits on token issues, most of which are prior to 1.5 when the issue was resolved. You could still get token issues if logging on after timing out (the token has expired.) The wording could probably be improved on those messages if we can determine the difference in state. But, we are not seeing a resurgence of this issue at this time. If you are continuing to have problems, please use the forums or create a bug tracker. Thanks.

  10. avatar Fraser makes this comment

    Thursday, 24 July 2008

    I've jumped the gun a little bit in applying the patches; if anybody feels foolhardy enough to follow along, download the 1.5.4 to 1.5.5 update package and install as usual.
    I haven't noticed any untoward effects (Linkr is gibbled since 1.5.3) or regressions from 1.5.4 -- yet. Good luck.

    NB: /libraries/joomla/version.php is not included - this means that your Joomla install will show 1.5.4 instead of 1.5.5.

    Thanks to the Joomla! devels for the continued hard work. You're amazing.

  11. avatar Wetsuit makes this comment

    Tuesday, 22 July 2008

    @Amy Stephen: That is great to hear, many thanks!

  12. avatar Wilco Jansen makes this comment

    Tuesday, 22 July 2008

    Eric, this problem is indeed serious enough to create a new release. Thew team has been working hard to solve this problem and 1.5.5 will be released as soon as possible.

  13. avatar Eric makes this comment

    Monday, 21 July 2008

    I just tried to login to the frontend of my site (first time since the 1.5.4 upgrade) and just like a lot of others:

    http://forum.joomla.org/results.php?cx=007628682600509520926%3Ahigrppcfurc&cof=FORID%3A9&q=invalid+token+login&sa=Search!#1100

    having the same issue. It looks like this is severe enough that I'll have to roll my site back 1.5.3. I even added the updated code to the template.

    Is there an SVN patch for this?

  14. avatar Amy Stephen makes this comment

    Saturday, 19 July 2008

    A patch is available http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomla/tracker/?action=TrackerItemEdit&tracker_item_id=11717 . If you wish to test this patch, set up a localhost environment and apply the patch using these instructions http://developer.joomla.org/bug-squad-blog/137-patches.html 1.5.5 is expected within the next couple of weeks. Wetsuit - we agree with your points and you will not see the blog or list page titles carried down into the article layout. Basically, you will see prior logic restored, except, if you want to you can add a Page Title to your Article Layout menu option. But, you have to say you want it -- no one will get automatic titles on articles anymore.

  15. avatar Wetsuit site makes this comment

    Wednesday, 16 July 2008

    Hi, some food for thought maybe.

    As I understand from some of the discussions on the forum - Joomla 1.5.4. always uses the Page Title set in menu parameters if it exists. This means it also uses this page title in article layout view. So if you have entered page title in your menu, and your menu points to a category, all the articles in this category will have the same title - one set in menu parameters.

    This doesn't seem logical nor useful from the SEO point. Page title in article layout (single article view) should always be the article title itself.

  16. avatar Amy Stephen makes this comment

    Tuesday, 15 July 2008

    Tim - try this post http://forum.joomla.org/viewtopic.php?f=430&t=306067&start=60#p1348347 which will replace the changes with 1.5.3 code.

  17. avatar tim makes this comment

    Tuesday, 15 July 2008

    Tibor Toth's fix is not working for my templates!

  18. avatar ernesto makes this comment

    Tuesday, 15 July 2008

    will you let us know as soon as this bug is fixed in svn? so we could download a "fresh" install from the nightlies...

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