[BUG] VmMediaHandler::$theme_url is never assigned, breaking the "no image"

[sirius]

VmMediaHandler::$theme_url is never assigned, breaking the "no image" placeholder URL (front and admin)

Environment

• VirtueMart 4.6.8
• Joomla 5.4.6
• PHP 8.1 / 8.5

Summary
The static property

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VmMediaHandler::$theme_url is declared as

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null and is never assigned anywhere in the codebase (I checked both the site and administrator sides, including the legacy

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VmMedia class). Because of that, every "no image" placeholder built from it resolves to a broken URL that is missing the

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components/com_virtuemart/ segment.

Where it happens
In

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administrator/components/com_virtuemart/helpers/mediahandler.php:

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// line 45
static $theme_url = null;

// line 591, inside setNoImageSet()
$this->file_url_folder = self::$theme_url.'assets/images/vmgeneral/';

// line 736, inside getIcon()
$tC = self::$theme_url.'assets/images/vmgeneral/filetype_'.$this->file_extension.'.png';

// line 751, inside getIcon()
$file_url = self::$theme_url.'assets/images/vmgeneral/'.VmConfig::get('no_image_found');

Since

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$theme_url is always

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null, the concatenation collapses to just

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assets/images/vmgeneral/..., with the

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components/com_virtuemart/ prefix missing entirely.

Then in

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displayIt() (same file, around line 785):

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if( substr( $this->file_url, 0, 2) == "//"  or substr( $this->file_url, 0, 4) == "http" ) {
} else if($absUrl){
$root = JURI::root(false);
} else {
$root = JURI::root(true).'/';
}
...
$imageArgs['src'] = $root.$file_url;

On a shop installed at the domain root,

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JURI::root(true) returns an empty string, so

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$root becomes just

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/. The final

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src ends up as:

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/assets/images/vmgeneral/noimage_new.gif
instead of the correct:

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/components/com_virtuemart/assets/images/vmgeneral/noimage_new.gif
The correct path is confirmed elsewhere in core, for example in

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administrator/components/com_virtuemart/models/config.php (around line 222), which hardcodes:

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$dirs[] = VMPATH_ROOT.'/components/com_virtuemart/assets/images/vmgeneral';
Steps to reproduce

• Create or open a manufacturer with no logo assigned.
• Go to Manufacturer > Edit > Images tab.
• Inspect the placeholder image:
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  src="/assets/images/vmgeneral/noimage_new.gif", which 404s.

The same broken prefix affects any entity that falls back to

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setNoImageSet() or the

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getIcon() fallback (vendor, product, category, etc.) whenever no image/file is set, on both front and back end.

Suggested fix
Assign

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VmMediaHandler::$theme_url to

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'components/com_virtuemart/' (the same segment already hardcoded in

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config.php) at class init, or replace the direct use of

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self::$theme_url in

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setNoImageSet() and

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getIcon() with a call that returns that path directly, since the property is currently dead weight that is only ever read, never written.

Happy to test a patch on a staging VM 4.6.8 / Joomla 5.4.6 install if useful.