Miscellaneous Mambo Problems and Fixes

I've had occasional problems with Mambo - at times making me think, "Whoa - that could be the end of it!" - but so far managed, with help, to find solutions.

mos_sessions Table Corrupted 

Today, after server trouble, found a site wasn't working; instead, pages showed an error message, beginning:
"DB function failed with error number 1016
Can't open file: 'mos_session.MYI'. (errno: 145)"

I searched for this text with Google, and found a forum thread with a post including a fix, by space-addiction. Fix was a few lines of code, for MySQL database:

 #
 # Table structure for table `mos_session`
 #
 DROP table IF EXISTS mos_session;
 CREATE TABLE `mos_session` (
 `username` varchar(50) default '',
 `time` varchar(14) default '',
 `session_id` varchar(200) NOT NULL default '0',
 `guest` tinyint(4) default '1',
 `userid` int(11) default '0',
 `usertype` varchar(50) default '',
 `gid` tinyint(3) unsigned NOT NULL default '0',
 PRIMARY KEY (`session_id`),
 KEY `whosonline` (`guest`,`usertype`)
 ) TYPE=MyISAM;
 #
 # Dumping data for table `mos_session`
 #

Using phpmyadmin, via cPanel, I checked the database, and sure enough found that the mos_session table was corrupt. Instead of trying repair - in case it messed things up even further, I tried running the above code as a mysql query. Happily, this worked. Phew!

Buttons not working after upgrade to 4.5.2

I had problem with New button, with Firefox; after noticing short note on Mambo site, I learned this wasn't real problem with button, but with cache. I emptied the cache, and button worked fine.

Mass Mail not found in 4.5.2

I did some searching for mass mail function after upgrade to 4.5.2; couldn't find it. Happily, via google, came upon this post on Mambers.com, giving solution. You have to also execute a line for sql tables:

 INSERT INTO `mos_components` VALUES (0, 'Mass Mail', '', 0, 0, 'option=com_massmail&hidemainmenu=1', 'Send Mass Mail', 'com_massmail', 0, 'js/ThemeOffice/mass_email.png', 0, '');

- I tried this (via phpmyadmin, with cPanel), and works fine.