Topic on Project:Support desk

Hi,

Were running a slightly old version of mediawiki

Product Version MediaWiki 1.16.2 PHP 5.1.6 (apache2handler) MySQL 5.0.77

And have been having some issues for a while now, we use Categories as a sole method of organising the wiki pages into a logical structure, adding tags to the bottom of pages such as [[Category:testing_software]], but we have noticed that some pages do not appear within the categories page after saving the page. These new pages only appear to users who have logged into the wiki.

e.g, if i create a new page called "test" and add the tag "[[Category:testing_software]]" to the bottom of the page, you would expect it to appear on the WIKIURL/wiki/index.php/Category:testing_software page with the rest of the pages containing this tag. But if a user is visiting the site as a guest (not logged in), they will not see this page on the WIKIURL/wiki/index.php/Category:testing_software page until they log in. However, they can see the page if they visit the URL directly (e.g. WIKIURL/wiki/index.php/test

Anyone seen this behaviour before, if so any idea how to fix it :)

Regards,

Aaron

First, you should definitely consider upgrading to the latest version of 1.19 which will be supported for the next couple of years -- Security fixes are no longer provided for 1.16.

Second, is there a URL for your wiki? It sounds like you are running a public one and that would help with diagnosing the problems.

Otherwise, what extensions do you have installed?

Were in the process of upgrading, but its in the hands of our IT Security staff to approve the software before upgrading (slow is the word of the day)...

Alas, its a private Wiki run only on our internal network, so i cant give anyone external access to check on these things.

As for installed plugins;

PdfExport (Version 2.4.1 (2011-01-29)) SyntaxHighlight (Version 1.0.8.10) FCKeditor (Version 1.0.1)

Thats all...

I agree with Ciencia Al Poder, it sounds like a caching problem.

Also, if you upgrade, you should be aware that FCKeditor is no longer supported. I'm trying to work with the WMF devs to figure out a solution, though.

This may be a caching problem. Have you tried purging the page while not logged in?

Bingo, Cache purge was the issue... I had no idea MediaWiki even had a cache... time to start looking into that, either disabling it or tuning it to work better.

Are there any better caching solutions out there (plugins) or a way to better tune the cache with a lower TTL, the inbuilt one seems to not re-cache pages for about a month !

If you really are upgrading, I think you'll see caching improve in newer versions. Otherwise, there is a FAQ: How do I completely disable caching? and documentation for how to improve caching.