One of the most common questions we get on the phone (we always answer the phone) is the following: “Sorry, but where I can change content xyz on My Joomla website?
Our invariable answer to this question is always: “Have you checked your modules?”
And we typically get the following answer: “Ah! Let me check…”, and then we occasionally get a phone call thanking us for our tip. As for those who don’t call back after checking, we assume that their problem was solved.
So, if you’re trying to change some content on your Joomla website, and can’t find it anywhere in the Article Manager, then most likely it’s a module (and, to be more precise, it’s a Custom HTML module).
But, what if I can’t find the content to change in my modules?
Do a search using phpMyAdmin on the #__modules table. Chances are you’ll be able to find it there. The query that you should use is the following:
SELECT title, position FROM #__modules WHERE content LIKE '%your-content%';
But, what if I still can’t locate that content?
Well, in this case, the content is either hardcoded in the template, in one of the modules, or in a plugin. You must do a grep to find the file containing the content you want to change. You can do that by connecting through shell to your website, and then issuing the following command:
grep -r "your-content" /home/[your-domain-user]/public_html
Note that the above code assumes you’re using cPanel/WHM.
I still can’t locate the content I want to change. What to do now?
You will need to search the whole database to find that content. phpMyAdmin has a tool that allows you to do that. All you need to is to click on Search on the top of phpMyAdmin page (when in Database view), and then enter the content you’re searching for next to Words or values to search for, and then select all the tables before you finally click on Go on the bottom right.
I’m so desperate. I still can’t find the content that I want to change.
If, after doing all the above, you can’t find that content, then most likely your content is stored on another server (there might be a curl call grabbing the content from another location), or it might be that the content that you want to change is encrypted. In this case, you will need to contact some Joomla experts such as (ahem ahem!) ourselves to help you locate and change that content. All you need to do is to contact us and we’ll do this task for you swiftly, professionally, and for a very, very reasonable cost.