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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• Other places to ask for help

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• 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 .
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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.

How can I organize a gaming guide wiki with MediaWiki?

I'm planning to build a documentation-style wiki for gaming tutorials, emulator setup guides, and troubleshooting articles. I already have a collection of Nintendo Switch emulator guides, and I'd like to organize them into a searchable knowledge base using MediaWiki.

Are there any recommended extensions or best practices for handling step-by-step guides, version-specific pages, categories, and internal navigation? I'd appreciate any suggestions from people who have built similar documentation sites. Lizadaniel (talk) 12:02, 23 July 2026 (UTC)

@Lizadaniel: : maybe reach out to River?? --☠MarkAHershberger☢(talk)☣ 17:29, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

I'd probably recommend opening a wiki on Miraheze. If you don't have a lot of structured data then you probably don't need any special extensions tbh, I'd rely on categories, navboxes, and amboxes to denote the various versioned articles/sections. There's a huge variety in how wikis like this are structured, so my main recommendation is to start putting content up and once you have maybe 20-50 pages with content, ask in the miraheze discord server for more specific advice relating to the content already present (though by that point you might have a pretty good idea of what makes sense yourself). RheingoldRiver (talk) 16:28, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

Are the Temp and Thumb sections inside the Image section unnecessary?

The Image folder of my Wiki-site was 1.6 GB in size. The Thumb folder inside this folder was 772 MB in size, and the Temp folder was 257 MB in size. I deleted the Thumb and Temp folders. No problem occurred. Then the Thumb folder was automatically created by itself, but its size was 25 MB. The Temp folder was not created. I want to know, did I do the right thing by deleting these two folders? And were these two folders really unnecessary? Шихалибеков (talk) 09:33, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

They're not unnecessary, but it's fine to delete them. They'll be recreated anyway, when needed. – Ammarpad (talk) 18:15, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

Yes, after 1 week, the "Temp" folder also appeared by itself. The size of the "Thumb" folder is growing rapidly, now it is 186.12 MB. Шихалибеков (talk) 19:38, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

collision between tunits trancluded and same id defined in the caller

Tracked in Phabricator
Task T433195

version -> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:REST_API/Reference/Sample_code:Create_page?oldid=8527286 defines t21 and t22. and the tunits work fine in API:REST_API/Reference/Sample_code:Create_page

now when sample code is transcluded in API:REST_API/Reference/ i see that the tunits t21 and t22 are grabbed from the calling source and no longer from the transcluded text - which is a nonsense. Do you agree ?

even if you renew the conflicting ids in the caller, it grabs value of its old ids which no longer are valid in the current source.

-- 🚨 Christian 🇫🇷 FR (talk) 20:07, 25 July 2026 (UTC)

Done Thanks @Pppery: use parameter 3= to protect TU id in tunit

# {{tunit|id=21|content=Create a user sandbox page on English Wikipedia|3=API:REST_API/Reference/Sample code:Create page}}

🚨 Christian 🇫🇷 FR (talk) 11:40, 27 July 2026 (UTC)

I'm confused, I was just e-mailed by Mohamed_Qtop about this thread. @Mohamed_Qtop do you mind explaining, why? Moe Epsilon (talk) 14:01, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

Trying to figure out how Pywikibot works

And I'm getting very interesting error messages. For example:

 File "C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\Python\Python314\site-packages\pywikibot\login.py", line 108, in __init__
   user = code_to_usr.get(site.code) or code_to_usr['*']
                                        17:17, 30 July 2026 (UTC)17:17, 30 July 2026 (UTC)~^^^^^

KeyError: '*'

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):

 File "C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\Python\Python314\site-packages\pywikibot\page\_decorators.py", line 32, in handle
   func(self, *args, **kwargs)
   Wikipedian12512(alt) (talk) 17:18, 30 July 2026 (UTC)^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 File "C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\Python\Python314\site-packages\pywikibot\page\_basepage.py", line 1376, in _save
   done = self.site.editpage(self, summary=summary, **kwargs)
 File "C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\Python\Python314\site-packages\pywikibot\site\_decorators.py", line 93, in callee
   return fn(self, *args, **kwargs)
 File "C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\Python\Python314\site-packages\pywikibot\site\_apisite.py", line 2102, in editpage
   token = self.tokens['csrf']
           17:17, 30 July 2026 (UTC)17:17, 30 July 2026 (UTC)~^^^^^^^^
 File "C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\Python\Python314\site-packages\pywikibot\site\_tokenwallet.py", line 42, in __getitem__
   self.site.login()
   17:17, 30 July 2026 (UTC)17:17, 30 July 2026 (UTC)17:17, 30 July 2026 (UTC)^^
 File "C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\Python\Python314\site-packages\pywikibot\site\_apisite.py", line 424, in login
   login_manager = login.ClientLoginManager(site=self,
                                            user=self.username())
 File "C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\Python\Python314\site-packages\pywikibot\login.py", line 110, in __init__
   raise NoUsernameError(
   ...<6 lines>...
   )

pywikibot.exceptions.NoUsernameError: ERROR: username for wikipedia:en is undefined. If you have a username for that site, please add a line to user config file (user-config.py) as follows: usernames['wikipedia']['en'] = 'myUsername'

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):

 File "c:\Users\User\Desktop\Week E\SummerTech26-1\Uselesspython.py", line 13, in <module>
   page.save('Replacing "foo" with "bar" as test.')
   17:17, 30 July 2026 (UTC)Wikipedian12512(alt) (talk) 17:17, 30 July 2026 (UTC)^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 File "C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\Python\Python314\site-packages\pywikibot\tools\_deprecate.py", line 427, in wrapper
   return obj(*__args, **__kw)
 File "C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\Python\Python314\site-packages\pywikibot\page\_basepage.py", line 1361, in save
   self._save(summary=summary, watch=watch, minor=minor, bot=bot,
   17:17, 30 July 2026 (UTC)17:17, 30 July 2026 (UTC)^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
              asynchronous=asynchronous, callback=callback,
              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
              cc=apply_cosmetic_changes, quiet=quiet, **kwargs)
              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 File "C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\Python\Python314\site-packages\pywikibot\page\_decorators.py", line 52, in wrapper
   handle(func, self, *args, **kwargs)
   17:17, 30 July 2026 (UTC)~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
 File "C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\Python\Python314\site-packages\pywikibot\page\_decorators.py", line 44, in handle
   raise OtherPageSaveError(self, err)

pywikibot.exceptions.OtherPageSaveError: Edit to page failed: ERROR: username for wikipedia:en is undefined. If you have a username for that site, please add a line to user config file (user-config.py) as follows: usernames['wikipedia']['en'] = 'myUsername' CRITICAL: Exiting due to uncaught exception OtherPageSaveError: Edit to page failed: ERROR: username for wikipedia:en is undefined. If you have a username for that site, please add a line to user config file (user-config.py) as follows: usernames['wikipedia']['en'] = 'myUsername' PS C:\Users\User\Desktop\Week E\SummerTech26-1>

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Here's my code:

import pywikibot

site = pywikibot.Site('en', 'wikipedia')

page = pywikibot.Page(site, 'User:Wikipedian12512(alt)/sandbox2')

page.text = page.text.replace('foo', 'bar')

page.save('Replacing "foo" with "bar" as test.')

print("Check")

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Here's my user config:

from pywikibot import config

usernames: dict = {}

usernames['wikipedia'] = {}

mylang='en'

family='wikipedia'

usernames['*']['*'] = 'Wikipedian12512(alt)'

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

And here's my environment.env:

PYWIKIBOT_DIR = ./pywikibot

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I am absolutely lost as to how I'm supposed to do this. I use visual studio, on Windows. Any ideas as to how to fix this? Wikipedian12512(alt) (talk) 17:18, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

See "Get help" on Manual:Pywikibot where to bring up Pywikibot questions. Thanks! Malyacko (talk) 16:44, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

Thanks. Wikipedian12512(alt) (talk) 22:18, 31 July 2026 (UTC)

Fatal exception of type "GuzzleHttp\Exception\ConnectException"

i'm getting this error when i go to the Special:Version page. i'm on 1.46 or whatever the newest stable version is and the thing that caused this error was adding:

$wgShellboxUrls = [
	'default' => 'http://shellbox.internal/shellbox'
];
$wgShellboxSecretKey = '[secret key]';
$wgShellRestrictionMethod = 'firejail';
wfLoadExtension( 'Score' );
$wgScoreTrim = true;

to make Score working.

the apache log doesn't show anything. RealPaxtonPenguin (talk) 17:26, 30 July 2026 (UTC)

@RealPaxtonPenguin: : Add $wgDebugLogGroups['exception'] = $wgDebugLogGroups['error'] = "$wgTmpDirectory/error.log"; and reproduce the error. This should produce an error log inside your images/tmp directory. Then check the file and post its contents here if you need further help. Let me know if this helps. --☠MarkAHershberger☢(talk)☣ 17:21, 3 August 2026 (UTC)

the temp folder value isn't set and when i do set the variable to something it breaks everything due to a UUID file thing not being in the folder. plus no error log even when i do set the temp --RealPaxtonPenguin (talk) 20:12, 4 August 2026 (UTC)

it cannot connect to the shellbox server. Login to the MediaWiki container, try to curl to the shellbox container. see if the connection works. —TheDJ (Not WMF) (talk • contribs) 22:30, 9 August 2026 (UTC)

Non-Arabic numeral to Arabic

I found w:Module:Armenian, but is there another way of translating numbers in one system to another? For example from ٢٠٢٥ to 2025? Jonteemil (talk) 13:07, 2 August 2026 (UTC)

TypeError: in_array(): Argument #2 ($haystack) must be of type array, bool given

Recently, I upgraded one of my wikis to MediaWiki version 1.43.9 and the PHP to version 8.1.2. When I open certain special pages (like Special:Version and Special:Preferences), however, I get an error related to type array. This only happened after the version upgrade.

Here is a link to the wiki page that showed the error: https://converter.penguinicewikis.com/mw19/index.php/Special:Version

How do I fix this? I need it done before the autumn/fall starts. Thank you for reading. Newman2 (talk) 01:02, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

Which exact version of composer is installed on the server? MediaWiki requires at least version 2. Malyacko (talk) 10:56, 7 August 2026 (UTC)

I actually got this question solved on Discord. My Composer version is 2.4.4. I may have more questions to ask on here though. Thanks anyways! Newman2 (talk) 17:30, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

uncompleted translations of automatic generated text

Page Special:ApiHelp/parse shows:

parseroutput
    Interne. Gives the JSON-serialized ParserOutput object for the parsed content. The format of this property may change at any time; mw:Manual:Parser cache/Serialization compatibility does not provide any guarantee of API stability.

and when transcluded in page -> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/API:Parsing_wikitext/fr gives :

    Fournit la version HTML du rapport de limite. Ne fournit aucune donnée si disablelimitreport est positionné.
parseroutput
    Interne. Gives the JSON-serialized ParserOutput object for the parsed content. The format of this property may change at any time; mw:Manual:Parser cache/Serialization compatibility does not provide any guarantee of API stability.
parsetree
    L’arbre d’analyse XML....

where the english strings remains untranslated among the french text.

Since it is said that the generation is automatic, from where comes this gap ? and where/how can the translator provide the corresponding translation ?

Thanks. -- 🚨 Christian 🇫🇷 FR (talk) 11:15, 6 August 2026 (UTC)

Wiki pages run "There is currently no text in this page." after configurating wiki following an upgrade

Hello. I have been working on a wiki that I have upgraded from MediaWiki version 1.39.13 to 1.43.9. Today, however, I am beginning to not be able to view older pages on the wiki (even after importing pages). When I do, there is an error saying that there is no text on the page, and that I have to either search for it or recreate the page. Can you help me out? Thank you for reading. Newman2 (talk) 17:51, 8 August 2026 (UTC)

1.46.0 - minervaneue is not available.

"Whoops! The default skin for your wiki, defined in $wgDefaultSkin as minervaneue, is not available."

It's really cool for the error page to have tips and suggestions. Unfortunately, the suggestions are already performed. This has never happened to me before. I've installed mediawiki more times than I can count.

I downloaded the source from this website

mediawiki-1.46.0.tar.gz - 98,615,738 bytes

MD5sum: 8e027b5d56fc13ddfac36e21db974588

The files are owned properly,

sudo chown www-data:www-data wiki/

the files inside wiki/skins/MinervaNeue/

do in fact exist.

The Localsettings.php has a line:

wfLoadSkin( 'MinervaNeue' );

So, why did the installation break this time?

~2026-43898-34 (talk) 15:07, 10 August 2026 (UTC)

If I just give up and choose a different skin, like MonoBook, then there is no error. It's as if minervaneue is dead-on-delivery in 1.46.0. Did someone goof the release?

1. $wgDefaultSkin = "minervaneue";

$wgDefaultSkin = "MonoBook"; ~2026-43898-34 (talk) 15:16, 10 August 2026 (UTC)