MODX 2.2.2 on IIS 7.5 - Authentication Required (Manager login)

On a recent install of MODX 2.2.2 attempting to login to the Manager threw a Windows Authentication dialogue box.  Selecting Cancel allowed access to the login screen on internal browsers (FF, Chrome and Opera) but could not be bypassed at the client's location.

Disabling Windows Authentication in IIS for the client's website prevents the Authentication box from being shown.

Interestingly Firebug showed that all the required files associated with the login page were sent to the browser even though the Authentication dialogue appeared.

MODX Dashboard shows 500 Internal Server Error on Login

An issue occured with the MODX News and Security feeds today causing IIS to throw a 500 Internal Server Error on login.  If IIS is set up to show detailed errors the actual error is displayed:

Reserved XML Name at line 1, column 38

This error will appear twice if both News and Security feeds are enabled and will disappear if the feeds are disabled.

Disable MODX News and Security Feeds

To prevent the error you need to access the System Settings:

• System > System Settings
• Filter by Area > System and Server
• Set MODX Security Feed Enabled and MODX News Feed Enabled to No

Accessing System Settings when the navigation does not appear means you need to know the URL or have any other manager URL in your browser history that can load a page where the navigation will display.  The System Settings URL is likely to be:

http://www.domain.co.uk/manager-location/index.php?a=70

Related settings

The following settings are usueful to know when working with the News and Security feeds:

 Changing Feed Headings

• System > Lexicon Management
• Topic > Dashboard from the dropdown
• Set new values for modx_news and security_notices

Changing Feed URLs

• System > System Settings
• Filter by Area > System and Server from the dropdown
• MODX Security Notices Feed URL

Note: this relates to MODX Revolution v2.2.4, some item names or locations may be different on other versions.

Add new columns to table in MySQL

The ALTER TABLE command can be used to add new columns to an existing table in a MySQL database:

ALTER TABLE table_name
ADD column_name datatype (eg. tinytext)

To add the column after an specific existing column add:

AFTER existing_column

To add multiple columns with the same statement a number of ADD commands can be chained together and separated with commas:

ALTER TABLE table_name
ADD social_url_twitter tinytext,
ADD social_url_facebook tinytext,
ADD social_url_blogger tinytext