Theme issue with fpw.php

[Taffman]

I have rebuilt my old v1.4 theme as a v2.x compliant theme (I hope) since them fpw.php only displays the header the form is blank. Any ideas on how I troubleshoot this?

[tgtje]

@Taffman maybe some clue for your theme.

[e107help[bot]]

@Taffman, start with a look rather than an edit. It costs nothing, and it is the same check that sorted out your login page.

In e107_themes/<your theme>/, is there a file called fpw_template.php? Look in the theme folder itself, and in a templates/ subfolder if there is one.

If it is there, move it out of the theme folder altogether, onto your desktop or anywhere off the site, and reload the page. If the form comes back, that file was the cause and you can leave it where you have put it. That is the whole fix, and it is the same shape as the login_template.php you found on #5903.

If it is not there, or if moving it changes nothing, then tell me one thing before changing anything else: does the theme folder contain a theme.xml, and does that file mention bootstrap anywhere? Those two answers decide between two different fixes, and one of them affects the whole site rather than this one page, so it is worth a message rather than a guess.

One caution about the link @tgtje posted. PR #5336 is closed and was never merged, and it is a file for the Bootstrap 5 theme specifically. Please do not copy it into your theme; in the second case above it would not help, and it would leave you with an override shadowing the one core ships.

Some background while you look. fpw.php builds the form two different ways (fpw.php#L89-L108) and chooses between them on a constant your theme sets, while the template file it loads is chosen on whether the theme has a theme.xml (e107_class.php#L3395-L3418). A theme can land on one side of the first and the other side of the second, and the form then parses down to an empty string, which on screen is a heading with nothing under it. Same code on 2.3.x (fpw.php#L340-L360), so your version number will not change the answer.

That is traced in the code, not run against your theme, which is why I am asking for the look rather than handing you an edit. Either way the fix ends up in your own theme folder, so a core upgrade will not undo it.

I have filed #6017 for one of the two cases, the one that is core's fault rather than your theme's. It may well not be yours, and if the file above turns out to be the cause then nothing in core has to change before your page works again, so there is nothing there for you to wait on.

[Taffman]

Thanks for looking into this. I can confirm the following:

1. I DO NOT have a fpw_template.php file in my theme folder
2. My theme DOES have a theme.xml file in its theme folder.
3. My theme seems to be the only theme that sees this issue.

[e107help[bot]]

@Taffman Thanks, those three answers narrow it to one cause. No theme file plus a blank form means your theme.xml cannot be declaring a Bootstrap version, and a theme with a theme.xml but no Bootstrap declaration is exactly what I filed #6017 about: the fault is in core rather than in anything you converted, and the shipped themes escape it only because they declare one, which yours has no reason to.

The fix on your side is one file, and I have tried it on a fresh v2.3.11 install on PHP 7.4 with a theme in the same state as yours: the form went from empty to the usual email box and Reset Password button.

1. Download e107_core/templates/legacy/fpw_template.php from your own site; it has been the same file since v2.3.1.
2. Upload it, unchanged, into e107_themes/<your theme>/templates/, creating the templates folder if the theme does not have one. Keep the file name as it is; nothing else in that folder should share it.
3. Reload fpw.php.

Why it works: on a theme with no Bootstrap declaration, fpw.php builds the form the old way and looks for a template written in the old shape. Core hands it the new-shape file instead, so it finds nothing to fill in. A copy of the old-shape file in your theme's templates/ folder is picked up ahead of core's, and the page gets what it was looking for.

On upgrades: the copy sits in your theme folder, so updating e107 leaves it alone. One thing to keep in the back of your mind: if a later release fixes #6017 and the form goes blank again after an update, deleting the copy puts it right.

The page where a logged-in member edits their own details (usersettings.php) has the same fault on a theme like yours, and the same copy of usersettings_template.php from that folder fixes it; I checked both. Get the password one working first, the other can wait.

If the copy makes no difference, tell me what the page shows now compared with before, even if the answer is "exactly the same".

[Taffman]

Thanks for this. I copied e107_core/templates/legacy/fpw_template.php to my themes template directory and now now works. Thanks again.