Frequently Asked Question (FAQ)

What if Galette does not work?

Sometimes, after an update, a change on hosting, or a simple bug - even minor ones - may cause a fail in Galette. You may observe:

  • a simple error message id displayed,
  • a blank page,
  • a page with a backtace (usually, not in production mode),
  • ...

In all cases, you must check the logs. Most of errors are stored in those files, it is a very good start point to understand the problem and potentially solve it.

There are two types of log files: Galette ones, and system ones. Galette logs are stored in the galette/data/log per default.

Server logs are another subject. On shared webservers, they are often not accessible to you :( On a dedicated webserver, their location change with server configuration; it is related to the operating system used, PHP and/or web server configuration, ...

  • with php-fpm service logs are in /var/log/php-fpm/www-error.log (for GNU/Linux Red Hat like distributions),
  • with (the deprecated) mod_php, you'll find them in /var/log/httpd/error_log (on other GNU/Linux distributions, httpd may be named apache),
  • on Windows/MacOS with XAMPP like solutions, there is at least one log directory in installation; you may find what you look for there.

Displaying errors

If you cannot access system logs files (frequent on shared hostings), you can display errors directly on the page.

Warning

Displaying errors on a web page may provide information that should not be public. In production mode, is it strongly advised not to display them. Above solution is only a temporary debug tool.

Please also note that with routing integration, some of those displayed information may be "hidden" from a buggy redirection... Logs are safer on that point.

To temporary display errors on page, create a galette/config/behavior.inc.php file with the following contents:

<?php
define('GALETTE_DISPLAY_ERRORS', 1);

The next time you reproduce the issue, errors will be displayed on the page.

Globally, you can use Galette behavior configuration to help you grab additional information.

How to report a bug or ask for a feature?

Bugs reports as well as RFE (Request For Enhancement) must be done on the Galette tracker, for Galette itself, all official plugins and also documentation.

Note

Unless you are sure you know, please de not attribute the ticket and do not set target version. It will be done when it will be took into account.

If you have doubts, feel free to ask your questions on mailing lists ;)

Report a bug

Please, do not forget to:

  • tell us the Galette version you are using,
  • be clear and consise,
  • to provide all required information in order to reproduce the issue
  • to provide related logs entries.

Request For Enhancement

Make sure to be precise as well on RFEs. Developers may not guess what you have in mind, you have to explain them, event if this seems obvious to you ;) Requested enhancements are tagged as "Souhaits" (whishes, in french), and moved by developers when work begins most of the time.

Once you made your whishes, you can submit it to a vote, most wanted features may catch devs attention.

How to search in lists archives?

Mailing lists are the main communication channel for Galette, from its beginnings.

As a reminder, since 2017, two lists are available:

If you are looking for archives before 2017, see:

Unfortunately, there is no search mechanism in any of those lists archives. The alternative is to use the site: keyword from your favorite search engine (most of them supports that keyword):

site:https://listengine.tuxfamily.org/lists.galette.eu/users plugin

Above search will look for "plugin" in archives of users mailing list. Just adapt the URL to the list/period and keywords you want ;)

To improve the search, refer to your search engine documentation.

How to use same email address for several members?

This is a very frequent question; many would love to do that...

This is not possible.

Indeed, mail addresses must be unique in the database. It is a choice for the project on which several features are built:

  • lost password (since... always or almost),
  • login (since Galette 0.9),
  • ...

Making them non uniques is not a solution we want to rely on. This would be complicated, and should be source of many bugs.

However, it is possible in Galette to link several members. That way, some information such as email and postal addresses will be retrieved from the parent member if missing.

This allows finally to use a unique email address for several members in database; but they are not duplicates in database.