It looks like you are seeing it with old css. A few F5 and ctl+F5 to make sure your browser cache is cleared may sort it out.

John - that's a remarkably quick response! Thanks. I'll upgrade again and see how it goes.

Regards

Standingtree

Don't upgrade again until you have tried just refreshing your browser cache.

John -

I've emptied the cache several times on all browsers, but no luck. I've created a clean install of 5.6.0.2 with a new database in a separate location, but no joy. Dashboard still scrambled. Although sometimes - not always - the main bar will load normally, then show misplaced text as soon as a selected menu item is displayed.

Individual menus may or may not be scrambled; it seems to depend on how complex they are. However, the menu item's top bar (which carries icons to close the window, mark as favourite, etc) always has its icons replaced by letters.

Strange!

Mac OS Lion 10.8.2, Safari, Chrome, Firefox

Thanks again for any light you can shed...

Ok, just eliminating the simple things first. Now it starts to get more complicated.

There are a few checks you can do to make sure the upgrade is completing fully and not loosing its way.

First, check that the directory /updates/concrete5.6.0.2/concrete/ exists and contains what looks like a list of c5 directories.

Then check config/site.php for the updated definition on the last line of the file.

If either does not, you could try the various stages of a manual install, as described in the INSTALL file of the c5 zip, which can also be seen on Github athttps://github.com/concrete5/concrete5/blob/master/web/INSTALL...

This boils down to unzipping c5 in the right place and entering the URLhttp://yoursite.com/index.php/tools/required/upgrade... in your browser.

If all that checks out, the next stage is more diagnostics which requires using the developer console of the browser (I like Chrome, but Safari or Firefox are also good for this)

In the network tab of the browser developer console set it to record all network activity as the dashboard page is loaded and see if any files are being missed.

Once loaded, also look at the console tab of the developer console to see if any page loading errors are being reported.

With the dashboard page loaded, right click on the mangled panel, and in the elements tab of the developer console, look at the css pane to the right to see if anything introduced by your front end theme or addons is being naughty and introducing styles that argue with or override the dashboard styles.

Right. I'm working with a fresh manual install of 5.6.0.2, default theme and no add-ons.
Going through your checklist:

1. config/site.php has no version definition in the bottom line
2. Manual install done (see above). All went smoothly.
3. Using Chrome's developer console, with the 'disable cache' option ticked. No files are flagged as missed, no page loading errors are logged - either when loading the opening page, loading the login page, completing login or when displaying any mangled menu or the full console.
4. Here's where I run out of knowledge! I see every element and its css on rolling over it, but I'm not sure how to spot a conflict of styles in the css pane. I've attached a grab as illustration.

It's very good of you to help. I appreciate it - thanks!

The styles part of the accordion on the right gives an analysis on which css rules from which style sheets are governing the currently selected document element on the left.

What you were looking for is places where the part of the dashboard pane you are looking at is either not styled (ie, a class specified in the element on the left is missing from the styles on the right), or where it is overridden (ie, crossed out on the right and then declared higher up on the styles list), but not from the css file you expected (you will see styles being overridden, but a lot of that is normal).


If it is an update, you should have an update defined in the last line of config/site.php.

However, if this is a fresh 5.6.0.2 install (rather than an update), with the default Greek Yogurt or Plain Yogurt front end theme and no addons or themes installed, there is nothing for a style to argue with, and the default install is well proven, so there won't be anything missing unless a file failed to load or failed to install, so examining the styles may be a red herring.

I am starting to run out of ideas. Some wild thoughts:
- If you were cloning an existing site onto your development system, did you pull in an .htaccess from the existing site by mistake?
- Is JavaScript enabled?
- Are there any browser settings over-riding style sheets (there are some browser plugins that do stuff like that)?

I think we need a few more c5-ers to join in with some fresh ideas on this.

John -

Thanks for your explanation - it's very helpful. And indeed, the problem persists with a fresh install (Yoghurt theme, no add-ones, no content) with no files flagged as missing.

To answer your questions:

1. I haven't knowingly brought across any legacy content
2. JavaScript is enabled
3. I wondered about an over-riding browser setting. As far as I know nothing is set; I like to let pages render as intended. And unless a plugin is responsible, an over-ride setting is unlikely across three different browsers - four if you count a separate iOS browser.

I'll check all that out to make sure, and post again if I find something amiss. I'm away tomorrow so will look into it on Thursday.

Cheers, and thanks again!

Standingtree

Hello again, John -

I've double-checked that JavaScript is on (though Java is disabled; enabling it makes no difference); I've also disabled any plugins (no difference) and made sure no browser custom style sheets are active.

Given that 5.5.2.1 is perfectly well-behaved across all my browsers and platforms, might the problem lay in the specific install I'm using?

For the clean install detailed in my previous post, I downloaded the stable version zip from concrete5.org/developers, decompressed it on the desktop, then uploaded the resulting folder's contents to an empty folder via FTP...

Cheers

Standingtree

Just a thought... I have had problems expanding large archives onto my local machine and then uploading all the files. I find it much quicker and more reliable to upload the zip itself and then use the File Manager in my host's Control Panel to expand the archive once it's on the server.

I would download a fresh copy of the archive from concrete5.org and try again using the method described above.

Mhawke -

Thanks for the suggestion! I have emptied the folder which held the clean install and uploaded a zip archive to it. But Sod's Law being what it is, my hosting service offers no way to decompress that file. So I must do it via SSH - but now I find I can't log in that way!

I'll resolve that small snag, decompress, install a clean version, then report back...

Thank you both for taking the time to help :-)

Regards

Standingtree

What host are you with? I had an account with GoDaddy and although they had expand functions, they limited their archive creation to something ridiculously small like 4MB or something so it was damn near impossible to backup a C5 site and download it offsite. That was the last straw with them.

Have you asked tech support if the function is there? Perhaps they call it something different. I also have a php script somewhere that unzips a file. I'll see if I can find it.

Mhawke -

DreamHost. A good lot, at least for my modest needs. Since your post I've sorted out access, so tomorrow I'll have another go at decompression. If I fail I'll see if DreamHost has a way - but I quite fancy having a go first as it's new territory for me! So your kind offer of a script could be very handy :-)

Cheers

Standingtree

This is all there is to it. It's fairly self-explanatory.

Create a file in your root called unzip.php and stick this code in it. I assume the name of your archive is 'concrete5.zip' but you'll need to change the destination folder to wherever you plan on putting your files. I put it in a sub-directory called 'region5' but if you're just expanding into your root, change the extractTo value to just "/".

Once you have this file on your server, visit "http://www.your-domain.com/unzip.php" and let the magic happen.

Mhawke -

All clear - thanks! Looking forward to giving it a go :-))

Standingtree

mhawke -

Uploaded a fresh zipped archive of 5.6.0.2. Didn't get off to a flyer, as the host server returned 'Fatal error: ZipArchive' not found'. But sorted that by changing PHP version at the host's end. Created new database, etc and 5.6.0.2 installed itself successfully.

On visiting the new install, Dashboard displayed properly first time in the header bar. Systems and Settings also displayed properly, as did Cache settings. But after that, all menus scrambled again. I have tried all options in the Cache and Speed Setting panel, clearing C5's cache and my browser cache after every change - but still no success :-(

Any further input would much appreciated. I'm stumped: not that that's hard to achieve…

Thanks again

Standingtree

Have you tried browsing to your site from another computer? What is the url to your site? That doesn't look to me like any site installation issue.

jmonroe -

Thanks for your input. Yes, I have tried a different computer, running two different browsers; also iOS5 and 6 on two different mobile devices. Always the same result.

Regards

Standingtree

Url?

URL might not help cuz it's the dashboard that's fudged.

standingtree was kind enough to give me access to his dashboard and it turned out to be the 'pagespeed' service on the host. Once that was turned off, all was fine.

For those who suspect the pagespeed might be an issue, you can turn it off temporarily by adding this to the end of the URL in your browser:



The URL ends up looking like this:



Details are here:

http://www.the-art-of-web.com/system/mod-pagespeed-issues/...

I was experiencing this same problem and your solution worked!

Thank YOU! Been suffering through this for a while. Also had Pagespeed on through Dreamhost. Turned off and hoping for good news.

Thanks I had the exact same problem, this helps.