Table prefix change leading to problems?

Lets take this from the top, shall we?

Timeline of events on the site:

2010-10-18
Backup before
JOOMLA 1.5.20 -> 1.5.21 UPDATE
XMAP UPDATE
ADDTHISPLUGIN UPDATE
IE6 WARNING PLUGIN INSTALLATION
KUNENA 1.6 & KUNENA DISCUSS UPDATE
JCE 1.5.7.5 UPDATE
CB PRIVACY UPDATE
Backup after

2010-10-20
htaccess based on Nicosdions master htaccess file to effect

2010-10-21
!!! Last completely successful registration to the site !!!

2010-10-22
Backup

2010-10-28
Backup

2010-11-01
Backup before
JNEWS CORE 4.2.0 UPDATE
JCOLLECTION 0.10.0 RC1 UPDATE
Backup after

2010-11-02
One partly unsuccessful registration to the site

2010-11-06
Backup
JOOMLA 1.5.21 - 1.5.22 UPDATE

2010-11-14
Backup

2010-11-18
Backup before
PREFIX AND SUPERADMIN CHANGE (see Nicholas's article on Joomla Community Magazine)
KUNENA 1.6.1 UPDATE
Backup after

2010-11-22
Backup
AKEEBA BACKUP UPDATE 3.1.5
JNEWS CORE 5.0.0 UPDATE
CB 1.2.X -> 1.3 & CB PRIVACY & CAPTCHA UPDATE

2010-12-04
Backup
CB 1.3 -> 1.3.1 UPDATE

2010-12-09
Backup

2010-12-10
Three severely unsuccessful registrations to the site

2010-12-16
Backup

The unsuccessfull registrations lead to user data being stored in #_users & #_core_acl_aro, but not in in #_comprofiler! The data in #_users is also incomplete (no params). The one "partly unsuccessful" registration differs from the later three "severely unsuccessful" registrations in that that the persons name data is displayed in CB User management. For the three "severely unsuccessful" ones names don't show at all in the CB User management.

Now about the updates on the timeline, I can't see any way that Xmap, JCollection, JNews or some other updates could affect the userdata. I feel that the candidates for explanation are the Joomla and Community Builder updates. I must admit, that this timeline is not based on a log or a diary I regularly keep but has been pieced together mainly from file dates and other sources. Therefore there can be mistakes and it does not provide a clear causal link to the cause of the problem.

There are no residual jos_ prefixes in the database, not even on the table Beat suggested.

I'm now thinking of other possible explanations like a problem in the mysql database server itself. It would be rather laboursome to revert to a backup from 2 months ago, manually select the rows from various tables that need to be re-integrated to the restored site to restore content added after the backup and to redo the updates selectively. But maybe I need to test it on development environment to see if it solves the problem...

Post edited by: kankaanp, at: 2010/12/16 22:56

2010-10-21
!!! Last completely successful registration to the site !!!

2010-11-01
Backup before
JNEWS CORE 4.2.0 UPDATE
JCOLLECTION 0.10.0 RC1 UPDATE
Backup after

2010-11-02
One partly unsuccessful registration to the site

Something somewhere in that timeframe changed and is causing your problems. Whether it's one of those extensions or not, I do not know. If the log you've made is accurate then is clearly fault of something outside of CB.

I would say it is the dangerous move of changing the prefix AFTER an installation is already established, but according to the log this problem appeared before doing that change.

Sorry, don't know what more to advise other then restart from scratch. Believe your install was compromised either by a 3rd party extension or by the "security" enhancements (which really are just not necessary).

krileon wrote:

2010-10-21
!!! Last completely successful registration to the site !!!

2010-11-01
Backup before
JNEWS CORE 4.2.0 UPDATE
JCOLLECTION 0.10.0 RC1 UPDATE
Backup after

2010-11-02
One partly unsuccessful registration to the site

Something somewhere in that timeframe changed and is causing your problems. Whether it's one of those extensions or not, I do not know. If the log you've made is accurate then is clearly fault of something outside of CB.

You're right. I've narrowed it down to the update on November 1st. A site restored to testing LAMP from backup taken before the updates works but the one restored from backup taken after the updates does not. As I said the log might not be completely accurate but now I know where I have to revert to to get things working again. Nothing obvious on either components support forum but since I've had some other problems with the JNews integration with CB and there are some hints of problems with the same update on JED I'm leaning towards jNews 4.2. Need to test the update again in LAMP before applying it to the restored site. Sneaky! Really would not have expected this type of problem from jNews update...

Post edited by: kankaanp, at: 2011/01/01 23:15

After some serious digging around I've found out that the problem is already a known issue:
www.joomlapolis.com/component/option,com_joomlaboard/Itemid,/func,view/catid,130/id,144388/#144388
The errors I receive are:

Warning: include_once(WPATH_CLASSNclass.jnewsletter.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in (snip)/plugins/user/jnewssyncuser.php on line 39
Warning: include_once(): Failed opening 'WPATH_CLASSNclass.jnewsletter.php' for inclusion (include_path='.:/usr/share/php:/usr/share/pear') in (snip)/plugins/user/jnewssyncuser.php on line 39
Fatal error: Class 'jnewssubscribers' not found in (snip)/plugins/user/jnewssyncuser.php on line 51

CB starting from version 1.2.3
AND
JNews starting from verion 4.2.0
are incompatible and the problem persists up today and versions CB 1.3.1 and jNews 5.0.3
I can find only unanswered posts about this on Joobi support forum and the one referenced above is marked solved. Unpublishing jNews, its plugins or jNews CB plugin has no effect on this problem, you have to remove/uninstall all of them to get rid of it. This is a very serious issue and I need to find a newsletter component that works.

kankaanp wrote:

This is a very serious issue and I need to find a newsletter component that works.

AcyMailing works fine.