My head was spinning after encountering this problem. I was publishing multiple featured articles but for some reason they were duplicating on the frontpage. The same article was showing up not only twice but articles tripled and was causing real problems on my Joomla 1.6 website. I checked all the frontpage settings but nothing was out of the ordinary. I don’t recall any Article or Featured article settings that would logically say ‘duplicate featured articles’. So this was a real headache. After many nights and much white hair I finally found the solution. Again it was so simple!! Here is how to fix the duplicate featured articles problem on the frontpage:
(I was also having difficulty finding deleted/trashed contacts, so I put some instructions at the bottom – step 8 – on how to find those as well)
1. Log in to your Joomla 1.6 backend.
2. Go to Components, Contacts, Contacts
3. You will see a list of users registered on your site, look down the column that says ‘Linked User’.
4. If any of your users are linked to the admin account, you must remove this link.
5. Click on the user.
6. In the field Linked user – click on the button ‘Select User’ and select ‘- No User -‘.
7. Oh also make sure you clear the ‘Trash’ contacts. Even if you deleted a contact that is linked to the admin user and still exists in the ‘Trash’ it will still affect your website.
How to find Deleted / Trashed Contacts:
8. Go to Components, Contacts, Contacts
9. Click on the ‘Select State’ drop down filter, and change to ‘Trash’.
10. Select the contacts in the ‘Trash’ that is linked to the Admin user and click on the button at the top ‘Empty Trash’.
Save your contacts and refresh your website. All the duplicate or triplicate featured articles should be gone.
Hope that helps,
Elaine
Elaine@cmsmind.com
Thanks, just converting the above site from iWeb to Joomla 1.6 This was driving me crazy, really caught me, as a 1.5 user thought I knew it all!!!
Big thanks
Phil
Hi Phil,
Yes!! They really changed things around in Joomla 1.6. The little things drove me nuts as well. Glad the post help you.
Thanks for your visit,
Elaine
Wow! I was completely racking my brain. I thought I stepped into some sort of Joomla Twighlight zone. You have save me hours of cursing. 🙂
This “glitch” actually had me pinned down for 2 weeks!
I was nearly considering moving back to Joomla 1.5 when I found this post.
Thanks a million!
/Ruud
Hi Ruud,
No problem, I felt the same way until I found the fix. Glad it helped you.
Thanks for your visit,
Elaine
Your post helped me a lot. thanks.
Hi Petr,
No Problem! Thanks for your visit.
elaine
Hi Jeff,
Thanks a lot for sharing this!
Fortunately, thanks to this great and simple article, you saved me a LOT of time!
I lost like only 15 minutes trying to solve the problem and then I just though “Well, let’s Google it…”.
Thank you very much. 🙂
Best regards,
Pedro Lima
Thanks a lot………
Hi Sudhir,
no problem! thanks for your visit.
elaine
This is occurring on Category Blogs for articles created by Super Admin, as well. oes anyone know if this has been reported as a bug?
Oh thank you so much for this solution.
You saved me from throwing my laptop out the window – this problem had been driving me insane!
THANK YOU!
Hi Rob,
No Problem, glad i could help!!
Thanks for your visit,
elaine
ha i did not get what i had changed in contacts that caused this or how it was even related but this solved the duplicate listings problem in the read more content module *just brilliant* thank you so much elaine! i looked all over the joomla forums too! thank you for going the extra mile to help others that were struggling – you are a joomla 1.6 master elaine!!!
Hi Den,
No problem! glad my post can help…
thanks for your visit,
elaine
Thanks for the fix. As of right now, the contact form stopped working when I unlinked the user, though.
Found this fix:
[code] Fix for this is in SQL as mentioned earlier
file
components/com_content/models/articles.php
line 207 , is joining the item on user_id instead ID , if same user is selected for more than 1 contact the user_id will be same for both contacts
change
$query->join(‘LEFT’,’#__contact_details AS contact on contact.user_id = a.created_by’);
to
$query->join(‘LEFT’,’#__contact_details AS contact on contact.id = a.created_by’);
[/code]
which may be easier. only wish i had found it before i deleted user. now trying to get the Contact Form working again.
Hi Mike,
I’m not too sure what the issue was. Did you delete all the users in your contact? The contact form has to link to a user in your contacts. Maybe you deleted your default contact? The fix for this issue was just to unlink the users.
Sorry for any confusion. Thanks for your code above.
elaine
Thanks mate you save my hair to become white also
Hi Enav,
No Problem, glad the post helped you.
Thanks for your visit,
elaine
Thank you!! This was driving me nuts! I’m so relieved to find the solution.
Hi Ellen,
No problem!
Thanks for your visit,
Elaine
Thank you very much Really you are great !!!
you made my day! Thanks, Elaine!
hi Peter,
No problem.
Thanks for your visit,
elaine
I was worried for a long time about this problem.
You saved me. Thanls a lot , Elaine!
Big thanks
Asami
thanks!!!
that was a huge rescue… thanks a lot!
Hi Hafi,
no problem! thanks for your visit,
elaine
I am having the same issue and I do not have any contact in the contacts? I also tried the fixed mentioned by Mike iLL, didn’t work out. Am I doing something wrong? Is there have to be a contact?
Thanks
Thank you for your posting! I agree with your sentiment of the situation, “My head was spinning after encountering this problem.”
Thanks for your time to post this solution. I was rolling back to alternate versions of the site to determine where I went wrong. The site ‘helpdesk’ folks were not helpful.
All good thoughts and wishes to you!
— best regards,
David
Hi David,
I was just about to send you an email. I’m not a professional writer, but I wish I was good enough to be one! 🙂
Thanks for your nice comments and for visiting my site,
elaine
Oh how I wished for this to work for me too. But Alas… I am still where you were before you found this solution…
My predicament is that –
everything is working like a well oiled machine except when a visitor uploads an article from the front end.
It appears only once in the article manager at the back end as unpublished waiting for my approval.. but when I come to allow it to be published it duplicates 8 times on the front end only.
I thought you must have the answer because I have 8 contacts in the contacts contacts.
But Alas none of them are in the trash and none of them are linked to any other user.
I NEED my visitors to be able to submit articles without logging in.
When i submit an article from the back end everything is fine. When I submit an article from the front end using a backend user name it is ok sometimes. But is I submit and article with any other name or none at all it duplicates x 8 when published. Any category including uncategorized.
Any suggestions ?? I have 3 Q. up on joomla forum and no one has answered any.
I am stumped totally
Thank you so much Elaine, I can not believe you found this. I’ve been back tracing Joomla for hours now, and you fixed it for me within a minute. Close to amazing , I would’ve never found it otherwise!
Hi Neejoh,
No problem. Glad I could help!
Thanks for your visit,
elaine
thanks, you saved my life 🙂
Had the same in J1.7
Hi Ol,
No problem! glad i could help.
thanks for your visit,
elaine
Thanks this fix has just stopped my new computer ending on the street, It has been driving me nuts for the last 2 hours.
Hi Jock,
No problem! I’m glad the post helped you.
Thanks for your visit,
elaine
Dang…. none of these fixes has worked for me with 1.7. I only had one contact… which was the admin…. and I unlinked it… but still duplicates. I had nothing in the trash contacts.
Here’s one page that’s doing it…
Changed the template… no joy.
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
It’s amazing that Joomla even has an option for linking a contact to a user if it screws up your site so badly.
Again, thank you!
Mike
Hi Mike,
Yes! I hope they fix this in future Joomla releases! Glad it worked for you.
Thanks for your visit,
Elaine
hey man thanx… very useful.. this saves me my mind
Hi Herman,
No Problem.
Thanks for your visit,
elaine
Hi Elaine, thanks for this solutions.
With Joomla 1.7 still happens and with your steps i can resolve it.
Regards…
Hi Tecnofilo,
No problem. Thanks for your visit,
elaine
Very thanks to you, ELAINE.
I have been developing my Joomla Site for 5 months and I accidently encountered with problem. I was desperate and almost decided to develop my project agan. But your tutorial saved me from “heart insult”.
Hi Fazliddin,
No Problem! I’m glad my tutorial helped you!
Thanks for your visit,
elaine
Great article. I have almost the same problem on Joomla 1.5.25 but I do not have any user linked in my contacts. Frontpage articles appears twice on my site. Does somebody know what else could be the reason? Thanks in advance
Thanks a lot, problem solved.
Hi William,
No problem! Glad the problem is solved for you.
Thanks for your visit,
elaine
Phew! This solve my problem. Thanks a lotttttt
Hi Elaine,
This helped me a lot. Initially I thought this caused due to installing extensions and struggling to correct the problem for two weeks.
Thanks a lot.
Kaminda
Elaine!
Omg, i almost felt crying after this worked on joomla 3.1… so many nights spend in frustration and finally such idiot problem was solved.
Can´t thank you enouth….