As of 11.07.09, this web site is again able to accept logins from users who have registered for an account and who have been accepted as site users. In fact any site user has been able to login since the site was created in March 2009.
However, in March 2011 the web hosting server for this web site was "hacked." During the hack several server-side code files for this web site were destroyed. My (the site administrator's) efforts from March 2011 through June 2011 to identify and replace the destroyed files failed. However, on July 9, 2011, as an experiment I backed-up the site and over laid all of the web site's code files with the complete "full package" for this version of Joomla, i.e. v1.5.23. All the user interface problems for logged-in users and for site administrators existing from Mar-Jun 2011 had disappeared. (Update: but they reappeared after 11.07.09.)
How I fixed the broken-bits of the Joomla v1.5.23 March-June 2011:
- The only way to debug how category names became blank fields in the back end (administrator's) Category Manager, or to debug why neither a category (article or web link) or article edit request resulted in a dysfunctional, un-formatted web page with data field contents displayed but no Save or Apply or Cancel action-buttons. The debugging solution seemed to be to duplicate the site at my home-office and use a debugger like NetBeans to step through the entire request-response cycle that gave the same errors. That would take many attempts just to find the break-points. The effort promised to be prolonged and very tedious, so I delayed doing it.
- 11.07.09 the idea occurred to me that since I had not added an article or web link to the site in weeks, it would be a good time to make a complete backup of the database and v1.5.23 PHP code, even if parts of that code were missing and causing the errors above. I then realized I could try to overlay the existing "bent/broken" v1.5.23 PHP code with the complete 100%-ok v1.5.23 core Joomla PHP code from the Joomla.1.5.23-Stable-FullPackage.zip file.
- I backed up code and database with Akeeba, with a "tar-ball" of the site directory, and with "export"of the database in phpMyAdmin.
- I copied the "full package.zip" file to the site directory, unzipped the file thereby performing the file replacement and the inclusion of any missing files in the core.
- In the back end of the site, Category Manager showed all the file names correctly. Web links showed all web link category names correctly. I could edit a web link category fine now. I could edit an article category fine now. I could edit an existing article fine now. I could create a new article for a category fine now.
- QED ("which was to be proved or accomplished")