Joomla Hello World tutorial not working

Question

Short version:

I installed this Hello World component in my Joomla 2.5 environment and although everything went fine during the installation, I am getting a 500 server error when I am trying to access it.

Can anyone let me know whether loading the above mentioned component in their Joomla 2.5 environment let me know whether it is working fine for them? And if accessing this URL works (the hostname and Joomla path may have to be adjusted):

http://localhost/joomla/index.php?option=com_helloworld

At least I will know it whether it is a problem with my Joomla installation.

Longer version:

I read this Joomla tutorial: http://docs.joomla.org/J2.5:Developing_a_MVC_Component/Adding_configuration

and downloaded the code from the "archive" link on that page. I uploaded the component on my Joomla 2.5.14 installation, but the component does not seem to work. Well, the administrative part of the component works, but not the end-user part.

Here is how I access it:

http://localhost/~myusername/joomla/index.php?option=com_helloworld

However this page gives me a 500 error:

Error: 500
You may not be able to visit this page because of:

an out-of-date bookmark/favourite
a search engine that has an out-of-date listing for this site
a mistyped address
you have no access to this page
The requested resource was not found.
An error has occurred while processing your request.
Please try one of the following pages:

Home Page
Search this site
If difficulties persist, please contact the System Administrator of this site and report the error below..

Call stack
# Function    Location
1 JSite->dispatch()   /Users/myusername/Sites/joomla/index.php:42
2 JComponentHelper::renderComponent() /Users/myusername/Sites/joomla/includes/application.php:197
3 JComponentHelper::executeComponent()    /Users/myusername/Sites/joomla/libraries/joomla/application/component/helper.php:351
4 require_once()  /Users/myusername/Sites/joomla/libraries/joomla/application/component/helper.php:383
5 JController->execute()  /Users/myusername/Sites/joomla/components/com_helloworld/helloworld.php:23
6 JController->display()  /Users/myusername/Sites/joomla/libraries/joomla/application/component/controller.php:761
7 HelloWorldViewHelloWorld->display() /Users/myusername/Sites/joomla/libraries/joomla/application/component/controller.php:722
8 JError::raiseError()    /Users/myusername/Sites/joomla/components/com_helloworld/views/helloworld/view.html.php:33
9 JError::raise() /Users/myusername/Sites/joomla/libraries/joomla/error/error.php:251

I am running this on OS X (10.8.4) with PHP 5.3.15 and MySQL 5.5.27.

Am I using the proper URL to call this component, or am I supposed to supply more query string parameters?

One thing I have noticed is that the tutorial is for Joomla 2.5, but the archive is for Joomla 1.6. Are Joomla 1.6 components supposed to work with Joomla 2.5? Joomla did not complain when I installed the component though.

Answer 1

Francois,

welcome to the world of Joomla. You are correct when you say that joomla 1.6 components should work fine on a 2.5 but that's not all true. There has been many complaints on this issue and it seems that some components are not compatible with higher/lower Joomla versions.

This is due to some sort of conflict inside of the code and different calls made/used to the components.

I believe it would be possible to fix these fatal errors since I have gone through this myself but you would have to go through the code and killing the code to see where it passes and where not and change those calls which are not compatible.

Sorry for not having an 100% solution but this could give you an idea of what the problem may be.