Theme switching issues

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Hi,

I have a massive workflow problem here.

In C5. what I used to do was create my content and then simply switch themes to fit one that displays my content best,

Now in C5.7 this just doesn't work anymore. Even working on a theme, doing some customization and then switching to a different theme, even with a site devoid of an content gets me caught up in errors that I cannot fix and that have forced me to do complete re-installs of two sites.

What I get is: An unexpected error occurred.
Call to a member function display() on a non-object

I am not sure what the cause it, but my guess is that the site still looks for custom styles, for a color template in a theme ... etc that isn't there anymore because the theme has been switched.

This is really annoying and I have run into this issue again and again although I try to be disciplined, but hey, one beautiful thing about a cms is is the ease of changing a template or color scheme.

Any help, tips how to change my workflow to avoid this?

I really wish 5.6 wouldn't peter out .. this was so much more user friendly.

rritz
 
hutman replied on at Permalink Reply
hutman
Do you happen to have the full error message and what file it happens in? That would be really helpful in providing more information.
rritz replied on at Permalink Reply
rritz
I provided the full error message above.

I am nit sure what you mean when you say file? It happens when I switch a theme and then the page is blank and displays the error message.

About areas disappearing, this doesn't worry me, I know about it.

What really breaks my workflow are these php errors. I think there should be a default fallback if a theme gets switched and a custom template is missing. But this just isn't there, so the page can't render and displays the error.

What can I do about it?
Gondwana replied on at Permalink Reply
Gondwana
Themes don't necessarily all use the same set of area names. This can cause areas to disappear when switching themes. I haven't heard of it causing harder errors, but maybe it could.

I'd be wary about assigning custom CSS classes to blocks, which are then defined in a theme's custom CSS. However, it would be surprising if this caused serious errors.
ConcreteOwl replied on at Permalink Best Answer Reply
ConcreteOwl
Go to dashboard/system/environment/debug and set the 'Error Detail' to Show the debug error output.
From there you will be able to get full info on what file is throwing the error message.
rritz replied on at Permalink Reply
rritz
Thank you, great help!
I did that now and isolated the error.

Seems like it was caused by a faulty theme.

The page was looking for a block from that theme
which is crazy since the theme has never been activated on the site once.