Project:Support desk

Welcome to the MediaWiki Support desk. This is a place where you can ask any questions you have about installing, using or administrating the MediaWiki software.

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See also

• Other places to ask for help

Before you post

• Check the FAQ and Errors and symptoms .
• If your question is about a specific feature, check the relevant technical manual , end-user help or extension page and consider asking on its talk page .
• For issues about the mediawiki.org website, report to Village Pump instead.
• Ask technical questions about Wikimedia websites on meta:Tech instead.

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1. To help us answer your questions, please indicate which version of MediaWiki you are using, as found on your wiki's Special:Version page:
2. If possible, add $wgShowExceptionDetails = true;error_reporting( -1 );ini_set( 'display_errors', 1 ); to LocalSettings.php in order to make MediaWiki show more detailed error messages.
3. Please include the web address (URL) to your wiki if possible. It's often easier for us to identify the source of the problem if we can see the error directly.
4. To start a new thread, click the box with the text Add topic.

request to have Special:Tags sorted by tag name

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T424105

Better to have alphabetical order in first column of Special:Tags to find easily one's tag. Thanks.

🚨 Christian 🇫🇷 FR (talk) 17:55, 19 April 2026 (UTC)

@Wladek92 See How to report a bug. Malyacko (talk) 12:49, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

is that a bug ? rather an improvement. Confirmed: it is a feature request -- 🚨 Christian 🇫🇷 FR (talk) 18:35, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

The first sentence on the linked page says: "These guidelines explain how to write a good bug report or feature request". Malyacko (talk) 10:14, 22 April 2026 (UTC)

why edit section link is missing on pages ?

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T424198

I have observed a difference on the section title of the rendered pages I cannot explain logically. Here it is :

On page Extension:InlineComments I click the following title from the TOC, i.e. -> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:InlineComments#Download
and there is no 'Edit section' link beside the section title 'Download'

On page Wikimedia_Research I click the following title from the TOC, i.e. -> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research#Mandate
and there is an 'Edit section' link beside the title 'Mandate' shown as [ edit ]

Question: why the Edit section link is sometimes present, sometimes absent beside the title ? Thanks.

🚨 Christian 🇫🇷 FR (talk) 10:21, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

I think it's because extension pages use Template:Extension which contains {{#if:{{TRANSLATABLEPAGE}}|__NOEDITSECTION__}}. See Help:Magic words. Jonathan3 (talk) 11:04, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

thanks, but this should be transparent to the editor: from an external point of view, I only want to use the functionality to update a section regardless to the code hidden behind and independently of the used namespace.
I add for reference -> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Section/Editing_sections_of_included_templates.

🚨 Christian 🇫🇷 FR (talk) 12:17, 20 April 2026 (UTC)

I think it's because the way translation is done on this website is a bit of a mess. Well, it seems to work well, but leaves the wikitext in a mess. Maybe editing sections in that context (i.e. translation system plus the extension template) would make it worse. Jonathan3 (talk) 10:32, 21 April 2026 (UTC)

@Jonathan3, I agree. The translations can make the edit button not appear. Floating Orb (talk) 03:18, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

thanks for your support, track added. The edit possibility is expected on the root EN page (else the translated pages are using messages and there is normally no edit button there).

🚨 Christian 🇫🇷 FR (talk) 09:54, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Photo = File

MediaWiki:Mobile-frontend-editor-uploadenable: Please replace the word "photo" here with "file", its not for just "photo". Sincerely, Qədir (talk) 20:57, 23 April 2026 (UTC)

Categories not sorting content properly and next/previous page broken?

I don't know how to describe the problem succinctly, so I'll give a simple example to start: https://fireemblemwiki.org/wiki/Category:Navigation_templates this category has 222 pages.

If you click the "next" button, you are taken to a page with only one categorized item, 21 pages are missing from the listing.

Then, if you click previous page, it sorts the categories starting from A instead of 0 and gives "The following 193 pages are in this category, out of 222 total.", if you click previous again (meaning the category is 2 pages long going forward but 3 pages long going backwards) you get a page showing entries sorted as 0 to A comprising "The following 29 pages are in this category, out of 222 total.".

Additionally, alphabetization seems to be behaving oddly. New files are being put at the end of the category, sorted alphabetically. So for example, If I upload "Carl.png" to ExampleCategory, the category will become "Bob.png, Sam.png, Tim.png, Carl.png". Instead of the expected "Bob.png, Carl.png, Sam.png, Tim.png". This has progressed to "Bob.png, Sam.png, Tim.png, Alfred.png, Carl.png, Dan.png, Ed.png" in more active categories.

Example of the alphabetization issue: fireemblemwiki.org/wiki/Category:Yutona_Heroes_War_Chronicles_portraits

"Portrait yuni trs01.png, Portrait zacharia trs01.png, Portrait zeek 01 trs01.png, Portrait charlent trs01.png, Portrait golgotha trs01.png"

What is gong on here?

I'm only an editor so I'm not sure how to diagnose this, and when I asked the backend guys they said none of the extensions should be breaking categories, and that it might be a 1.43 feature change? But I don't understand what this feature would be.

I don't think it's being caused by anything obvious like sortkeys or cache issues, it's been like this for about six months. I've also tried a few things like editing the category page with some minor edit to make it update, but that doesn't seem to help. It also happens if I look around the category pages while logged out.

~2026-25342-15 (talk) 02:02, 25 April 2026 (UTC)

How to find out when a certain Namespace is used across the wikis?

Hello! I'll just give an example right away. If I wanted to know all the instances (of the several Wikisource projects in the Wikimedia world) where a special namespace usually called "Author:" (in English) is used, while it does not have a fixed number but varies from project to project (en/102 or es/106], how would I do that? Pxos (talk) 14:21, 26 April 2026 (UTC)

Good starting doc for editing templates

Any recommendations for good starting points for editing templates on a MediaWiki install? I've found

• https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Help:Templates
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:A_quick_guide_to_templates
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Help:Template

but I'm finding them challenging to learn from. Are there any I've missed? Maybe some "unofficial" documents or articles or blogposts I should read? Bsammon (talk) 00:43, 27 April 2026 (UTC)

A good starting point is looking at existing templates. Ask a specific question about what you're trying to do :-) Jonathan3 (talk) 12:54, 29 April 2026 (UTC)

use also the sandbox and write testcases to see how parameters react and follow the code source

🚨 Christian 🇫🇷 FR (talk) 10:53, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

1.43 CheckUser Internal Error

When attempting to execute CheckUser inquiries on 1.43, I can run the "Get IP Addresses" for a registered account and the "Get Users" for an IP address without issue. But attempting to run the "Get Actions" for either registered or unregistered, as well as attempting to use Special:Investigate, both throw the fatal exception/internal error:

[afDsJx7ifTZnjjMNwX4hMwAFmxo] /index.php?title=Special:CheckUser Error: Class "Firebase\JWT\JWT" not found

Yet strangely these actions are still logged in the CU log, even though I can't view any data from them. The Boston Railfan (talk) 17:23, 28 April 2026 (UTC)

There's a similar question here - Topic:Wgcydicxa790v7io - and the answer was to run composer update --no-dev. Jonathan3 (talk) 12:53, 29 April 2026 (UTC)

Marking [sic] text or creating a custom tag

I'm using my wiki to collaboratively transcribe old documents. With this, I need to balance accurately transcribing the text and fixing outdated or incorrect usages. Is there a way I can markup this text? And if one doesn't already exist, is it possible to make my own custom tags?

"The ((Berenstein|Berenstain)) Bears is a children's literature franchise." ~2026-26583-63 (talk) 12:46, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

Is it possible to write a custom parser extension that registers new bracket syntaxes? I want to avoid heavy syntax like {{#sic:Berenstein|Berenstain}} or <sic>Berenstein|Berenstain</sic>. ~2026-26583-63 (talk) 12:57, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

Distinguish articles within categories

Hello! I am a user of the Kurdish Wiktionary. My problem is that several variants of the same word appear in the same category without it being possible to distinguish them. It sometimes happens that within the same category, there are more variants than standard words...

I would therefore like to know if it is technically possible to display a page using a given template in a category with a specific color or symbol (as is the case for page redirects which are displayed in italics)? Ghybu (talk) 16:06, 1 May 2026 (UTC)

Add topic

This page says: "4. To start a new thread, click the box with the text Add topic." But... there IS no such button. - Erik Baas (talk) 07:27, 2 May 2026 (UTC)

PageSaveComplete Hook and rendered HTML

I'm trying to store the rendered html of articles in my main namespace. Right now I'm trying to save them as a file trying to get it to work, but then I plan on saving it in a database. I'm using MediaWiki 1.43.8.

$wgHooks['PageSaveComplete'][] = function($wikiPage, $user, $summary, $flags, $revisionRecord, $editResult){
	if($wikiPage->getTitle()->getNamespace() !== NS_MAIN) return true;
	$title = $wikiPage->getTitle();
	$pageName = $title->getPrefixedDBkey();
	$services = MediaWiki\MediaWikiServices::getInstance();
	$content = $revisionRecord->getContent(MediaWiki\Revision\SlotRecord::MAIN);
	$renderer = $services->getContentRenderer();
	file_put_contents('test1.html', 'test 1');
	$parserOptions = $services->getParserFactory()->getParserOptionsFactory()->newOptions();
	file_put_contents('test2.html', 'test 2');
	$parserOutput = $renderer->getParserOutput($content, $title, null, $parserOptions);
	$html = $parserOutput->getText();
	file_put_contents('test3.html', $html);
	return true;};

I think the error is between test 1 and test 2 as the first file writes and the second doesn't. I don't get any server log or browser errors. ~2026-26696-50 (talk) 22:45, 2 May 2026 (UTC)

Is the Special:RestSandbox page available for third-party wikis (i.e. external installations)?

I asked this before on the API:REST API page but didn't get any response there. I read somewhere that it will be available on MW 1.46, can anyone confirm this? Draheinsunvale (talk) 22:14, 3 May 2026 (UTC)

MySQL 8.4+ Compatibility

MySQL 8.4 has changed the way auto_increment works. Will this affect MediaWiki compatibility?

Data Types & Constraints: 8.4 prohibits AUTO_INCREMENT on FLOAT/DOUBLE columns. Molsen7970 (talk) 18:16, 5 May 2026 (UTC)