Fix for MovableType loses ability to assign categories to entries
December 13, 2012
I first noticed the category assignment problem in November, 2012. I published an article on my MovableType blog and was annoyed when I didn't see the category I checked appear below the category box. I thought I was imagining things and saved the article. The same thing happened with several more articles. Yesterday I published another article and had the same problem of not being able to assign the entry to a category and it got my goat.
Late tonight I got really curious as to why I couldn't assign categories to my entries anymore and set out to discover whether anybody else had the same problem. At 2AM tonight, I found the cause and a solution.
I use Firefox as my default web browser and always upgrade when a new version comes down the stable release channel. Right now I am typing this in Firefox 17.0.1. The version I was using a month ago was 16.x, and I was using Firefox 15.x when I published my last article that I could assign a category to. Something has changed in Firefox, not MovableType!
After a brief Google search for "MovableType can't select categories for entries" I came across a MovableType Community forum topic about this very problem. All affected users were using Firefox 16 and newer, just like me. Fortunately for all of us, MovableType support figured out what had gone wrong in Firefox and has provided us with a patch. Actually, they provided 4 patches, for versions 4.28, 5.07, 5.14 and 5.2. People using any sub-version of MT 4.x should download the patch for MT 4.28. It is backwards compatible across most of v4.
The patch links are found on the community support page titled: Patch file for Firefox 16 users. Choose the file that most closely matches your installation of MovableType.
The patch and its contents
The patches are inside zipfiles. Most computers have the ability to decode zipfiles. Otherwise, you can download 7Zip, or Winzip to decompress the files. There are exactly two (2) files inside the zipfiles. They need to be uploaded to your server to the location where you have installed the mt-static directory. They go into two different subdirectories under mt-static, as follows.
mt_core_compact.js replaces the original file in: mt-static/js/mt_core_compact.js
List.js replaces the original file located in: mt-static/js/common/List.js
I renamed my original files as mt_core_compact-orig.js and List-orig.js, just in case something was wrong with the replacements (Which was not the case. They worked fine).
Before you can see this patch take effect, close Firefox if you were logged into your MovableType editor. Upload the files in ASCII mode to the specified mt-static directory, to the /js and js/common subdirectories, as listed above. When I opened Firefox and logged into MovableType, as I managed entries that previously refused to be assigned a category, the function now worked as expected and I was able to assign any categories I wanted them in, then save the entries. The changes took immediately, as expected.
I don't know what exact change in Firefox caused this crap and am not about to change browsers over it. I am very grateful to the author of the patch! I hope this helps other Firefox and MovableType users. If the same thing reoccurs in a future Firefox upgrade, go to the MovableType Community forum and search for a new patch in the list on the landing page.
If you like this article please share it.
The content on this blog may be reprinted provided you do not modify the content and that you give credit to Wizcrafts and provide a link back to the blog home page, or individual blog articles you wish to reprint. Commercial use, or derivative work requires written permission from the author.