Hello,
I have been investigating a strange issue for quite some time and I have finally managed to isolate it.
Environment
• Joomla 6.1.2
• jDownloads 4.1.4
• PHP 8.5.2
• Apache (PHP-FPM)
• SEF URLs enabled
The same behaviour has existed since Joomla 4 and also occurred on older Joomla versions.
Problem
I have a Single Category menu item pointing to a protected jDownloads category.
Menu structure:
Authority Management (Public)
└── Committee (Public)
└── Reserved Area (Access: Committee)
-> jDownloads - Single Category
The category itself has the same access level as the menu item.
Behaviour
As Super User:
• URL without SEF → OK
• URL with SEF → OK
As a normal authenticated user belonging to the required access level:
• URL without SEF (index.php?option=com_jdownloads&view=category&catid=18&Itemid=320) → OK
• URL with SEF → 404
The generated SEF URL is:
/authority-management/committee/reserved-area/category/18-committee.html
Joomla Debug
With Joomla Debug enabled, the exception is thrown in:
Joomla\CMS\Router\Router::parse()
before jDownloads is executed.
Important observations
• The user definitely has permission to access the category.
• Access is confirmed because the non-SEF URL works correctly.
• Hidden "List All Categories (Default)" menu item exists.
• Rebuilding menus and clearing cache did not help.
• Re-selecting the category in the menu item did not help.
• Changing the category alias did not help.
• There are no duplicate menu items pointing to this category.
• Parent menu items are Public.
• Only the Single Category menu item is restricted.
Additional information
I have two completely different websites showing exactly the same behaviour.
• One site was originally created years ago (Joomla 3 and later migrated).
• The other site was created directly in Joomla 4.
• Both are now running Joomla 6.1.2 with jDownloads 4.1.4.
• Both have the same problem.
Interestingly:
If I create another menu item in the same location using "Single Article" or "List All Categories - jDownloads" (same access level), everything works correctly with SEF enabled.
The problem only occurs when the menu type is jDownloads -> Single Category.
Question
Is this a known issue with the Single Category router when SEF URLs are enabled?
Could the router be falling back to a generic route like:
.../category/18-category-name.html
instead of resolving the existing menu Itemid?
Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
Lina
Hi Lina,
thank you for bringing this to our attention.
We are already working on this router/SEF issue. It is important to us to find a solution that resolves the error without changing existing URLs or rendering old links invalid. As soon as we have a reliable, backwards-compatible implementation, we will post an update here.