[solved; template proplem]BE view order not rendering fully - how to debug?

[aerdna]

Hi,
I'm using Joomla 3.4.8, php 5.6.24 and VM 3.0.12

I've been trying to develop a custom plugin based off of the textinput custom plugin and at some point it appears I messed something up along the way so that in the back end when I view an order by clicking on the Order Number, it takes me to a page that appears to render without any css styling - just basic html, and only the quantity and item name appear. The cell values for SKU, Status of ordered products, etc. have no text.  I'm pretty sure there used to be buttons and html form elements before it got messed up.

How do developers debug something like this? I have no idea what files are involved in displaying the backend orders and don't know how to find this information other than attempting to infer it from the code.

I've tried backing out my changes, but the problem persists.  I don't think I've modified anything else but obviously I have. I just don't know how to debug this short of reverting my entire site to the original install.  I was also working on a payment plugin.  (Chrome dev tools shows no errors btw and the head section does have the css and js files included). It's like it just stopped rendering the page after the first item in the order history.

My site is not accessible to the public so I can't share that info.

Any suggestions?

Thank you,
Andrea

[GJC Web Design]

VM's folder and file structure is very logically set out

it follows MVC conventions

admin orders will be displayed from  \administrator\components\com_virtuemart\views\orders\

sounds like a syntax error

[aerdna]

Ok. Thank you.  I'll look through those files.

I apologize for my many newbie questions but really appreciate the help!

Andrea

[GJC Web Design]

I'm using Joomla 3.4.8, php 5.6.24 and VM 3.0.12

you should be on J3.6.2/VM3.0.16 -- the upgrade will probably fix the problem

http://dev.virtuemart.net/attachments/download/1000/com_virtuemart.3.0.16_extract_first.zip

[aerdna]

I think my template was buggy perhaps because I couldn't really find any reason for the odd display.  I just bought a modern template with a "quickstart" so I'm now running Joomla 3.6.0 and VM 3.0.16.  I tried to upgrade Joomla to 3.6.2 but it gave me an error message.  The quirkiness is gone now with the orders though so I'm happy at least until I really need to upgrade Joomla and have to figure out why the upgrade didn't work.

Thanks for the suggestions.   

[jenkinhill]

I suggest you report your Joomla update issue on http://forum.joomla.org/viewforum.php?f=710

And provide the exact error message you saw.

[GJC Web Design]

Also illustrates the perils of quickstart.. IMHO -- clean Joomla - clean VM installs then apply your template

[aerdna]

I actually prefer to use a clean install as I don't like including some other person's "mystery" setup with who-knows-what hidden where, but when I installed the purchased template to my clean install, it was way too complex for me to even figure out how to use it.  It uses the Helix framework which I'd never seen before, plus a lot of extensions that produced the end result I wanted if I only knew which ones to install, where to find them and how to configure them.  Without the "quickstart" I would never have been able to setup my site within my lifetime. Way too much to learn and figure out without any documentation.  Seeing it working now I can at least educate myself on how to maintain it.

I ended up trading one bad thing for another but had to choose the lesser of two evils for me.  My clean install + my old template produced an unsuable website.  My quickstart version works so far :-)

[GJC Web Design]

I guess in this scenario if u want to go with some complex template (never seen the need) then set up the quickstart and also set up a the live clean install with just the template in another install

[aerdna]

So, I've taken your advice and backed up the "quickstart" to another domain for reference, then did a clean install myself with joomla and VM at the latest versions, then installed the "complex" template and all the dependencies I could find (still working on some parts).  It took the entire weekend, but I feel much better about it and understand it a lot better. The template is actually pretty straight-forward now that I've taken a deeper dive...I'm just not versed in joomla very well (or VM!), but trying to get there.

Again, I really appreciate your input and suggestions...and patience :-)

[GJC Web Design]

   yahooooo!  finally someone follows my advice...