Wrong tab configuration on Magento

Question

I have a huge problem with an magento extension I developed. Localhost everything is fine but when I deploy, it get this error.

Wrong tab configuration

#0 [internal function]: Mage_Adminhtml_Block_Widget_Tabs->addTab('pricematrix', 'tab_pricematrix')
#1 /var/www/vhosts/discountprint.dk/httpdocs/app/code/core/Mage/Core/Model/Layout.php(347): call_user_func_array(Array, Array)
#2 /var/www/vhosts/something.dk/httpdocs/app/code/core/Mage/Core/Model/Layout.php(213): Mage_Core_Model_Layout->_generateAction(Object(Mage_Core_Model_Layout_Element), Object(Mage_Core_Model_Layout_Element))
#3 /var/www/vhosts/something.dk/httpdocs/app/code/core/Mage/Core/Model/Layout.php(209): Mage_Core_Model_Layout->generateBlocks(Object(Mage_Core_Model_Layout_Element))
#4 /var/www/vhosts/something.dk/httpdocs/app/code/core/Mage/Core/Controller/Varien/Action.php(343): Mage_Core_Model_Layout->generateBlocks()
#5 /var/www/vhosts/something.dk/httpdocs/app/code/core/Mage/Core/Controller/Varien/Action.php(270): Mage_Core_Controller_Varien_Action->generateLayoutBlocks()
#6 /var/www/vhosts/something.dk/httpdocs/app/code/core/Mage/Adminhtml/Controller/Action.php(263): Mage_Core_Controller_Varien_Action->loadLayout(Array, true, true)
#7 /var/www/vhosts/something.dk/httpdocs/app/code/core/Mage/Adminhtml/controllers/Catalog/ProductController.php(246): Mage_Adminhtml_Controller_Action->loadLayout(Array)
#8 /var/www/vhosts/something.dk/httpdocs/app/code/core/Mage/Core/Controller/Varien/Action.php(418): Mage_Adminhtml_Catalog_ProductController->editAction()
#9 /var/www/vhosts/something.dk/httpdocs/app/code/core/Mage/Core/Controller/Varien/Router/Standard.php(253): Mage_Core_Controller_Varien_Action->dispatch('edit')
#10 /var/www/vhosts/something.dk/httpdocs/app/code/core/Mage/Core/Controller/Varien/Front.php(176): Mage_Core_Controller_Varien_Router_Standard->match(Object(Mage_Core_Controller_Request_Http))
#11 /var/www/vhosts/something.dk/httpdocs/app/code/core/Mage/Core/Model/App.php(340): Mage_Core_Controller_Varien_Front->dispatch()
#12 /var/www/vhosts/something.dk/httpdocs/app/Mage.php(627): Mage_Core_Model_App->run(Array)
#13 /var/www/vhosts/something.dk/httpdocs/index.php(80): Mage::run('', 'store')
#14 {main}

I Googled it for hours but can't find any useful information. My magento version is 1.5.0.1

Hope you can help

Answer 1

Normally localhost problems that don't appear on a live site are to do with filesystem case sensitivity. Most developers in my experience develop on Windows / Mac OSX, which by default aren't case sensitive. But most production environments are some kind of *nix system. One thing that has tripped me up in the past is having a filename with a capital letter in the middle.

For example if a block is FooBar.php and sits in Mage_Core, when loading the model you must use...

Mage::getModel('core/fooBar');

The string is automatically ran through ucwords, but obviously any camel casing in your file naming will need to be taken into account when requesting a model/block etc.

Answer 2

You'll get a lot farther if you stop searching Google and start searching your code.

Search for the exception string "Wrong tab configuration"

$ ack 'Wrong tab configuration'
Adminhtml/Block/Widget/Tabs.php
108:                throw new Exception(Mage::helper('adminhtml')->__('Wrong tab configuration.'));
112:            throw new Exception(Mage::helper('adminhtml')->__('Wrong tab configuration.'));

Look at that, there's only two possible places in the entire source tree that could be throwing that exception, both in the addTab method your stack-trace indicated was being called. Looking at that code in context

public function addTab($tabId, $tab)
{
    if (is_array($tab)) {
        $this->_tabs[$tabId] = new Varien_Object($tab);
    }
    elseif ($tab instanceof Varien_Object) {
        $this->_tabs[$tabId] = $tab;
        if (!$this->_tabs[$tabId]->hasTabId()) {
            $this->_tabs[$tabId]->setTabId($tabId);
        }
    }
    elseif (is_string($tab)) {
        if (strpos($tab, '/')) {
            $this->_tabs[$tabId] = $this->getLayout()->createBlock($tab);
        }
        elseif ($this->getChild($tab)) {
            $this->_tabs[$tabId] = $this->getChild($tab);
        }
        else {
            $this->_tabs[$tabId] = null;
        }

        if (!($this->_tabs[$tabId] instanceof Mage_Adminhtml_Block_Widget_Tab_Interface)) {
            throw new Exception(Mage::helper('adminhtml')->__('Wrong tab configuration.'));
        }
    }
    else {
        throw new Exception(Mage::helper('adminhtml')->__('Wrong tab configuration.'));
    }

It looks like your call is running through the second if/else branch. Your tab string, tab_pricematrix, is used to fetch a child block from the current tab

$this->_tabs[$tabId] = $this->getChild($tab);

However, it looks like whatever it finds in there isn't a child of Mage_Adminhtml_Block_Widget_Tab_Interface.

My guess is that's because the call to getChild is returning false because your module hasn't added a tab with the name tab_pricematrix to the layout (did you copy the Layout XML files to the new server?) Without knowing how you've implemented that module, it's impossible to say for sure.

Good luck!