One of my sites which is running Joomla came up with a weird message when I went to reorder some menu items. The message said ‘cannot reorder as there is an item checked out’.
I must admit that I haven’t used Joomla too much, and not it’s predecessor/competitor mambo for quite some time so I wasn’t sure what the issue was.
Upon a bit of research and thinking, I was able to understand what the message was and how to fix it.
A file remains ‘Checked Out’ until the User clicks ‘Save’ or ‘Cancel’, at which time the file is “Checked In”. However, if there’s a connection error, the user presses the ‘Back’ icon in his/her browser, or the User chooses another menu item without saving or canceling the work in progress, the file remains ‘Checked Out’.
This means no one can edit this content item but the person who “Checked Out” the item or the Super Administrator. This is usually reported or experienced as Users being unable to edit or access items, and can be verified by looking at the column labeled “Checked Out” in the Section, Category, or Item file list. You will also see a padlock next to the offending item.
If you wish to edit a “Checked Out” item, you will have to ask the last author who “Checked Out” the item to “Check In” the item or to ask the Super Administrator to “Check In” the item. As I was the only user/administrator on the site, I need a workaround or a fix.
Joomla has an menu option, called “Global Check-in” that allows an administrator to unlock all files that are currently Checked Out.
To perform the ‘Global Check-in’, I selected “System > Global Check In” from the Administrator menu bar.
After performing the ‘Global Check-in’, Joomla then returned a list showing how many items were Checked back in. After that, I was then able to reorder my menu items.
Note: Be very careful in doing this in a multi user Joomla site as anyone who is editing a document at that very moment can have his or her work lost.