Question Uncaught Exception: Another menu item has the same alias in Root. New J! 1.6 installations

Thanks, Eef, and welcome to Kunena.

We started this topic because there are a few people who get this "another menu item has same alias in root" message when they're trying to install Kunena. Someone came up with the idea that this error message arises because people are have a totally "fresh Joomla 1.6" website but one that they loaded sample data into. What we have established, however, is that the error message is not dependent on whether the sample Joomla data was loaded or not loaded. That was the point of this topic and, now that we've dealt with that suspected cause, the discussion about that issue should be over.

However, for other people trying to install Kunena, there will be occasions when they get "another menu has same alias in root" when they're trying to install Kunena on a "fresh version of Joomla" and we need to identify what we mean by J! 1.6 and what is a "fresh version"

Joomla 1.6 means J! 1.6.3. It does not mean J! 1.6.0 or J! 1.6.1 or J! 1.6.2. It means J! 1.6.3. So let's be totally clear on that point.

A fresh install of Joomla means a threadbare, vanilla-flavoured, nothing-else-added-to-it installation of J! 1.6.3. So let's also get that point crystal-clear, too.

Many people claim that they are using a "fresh install of Joomla" when they mean that they've installed J! 1.6.0 plus Community Builder 1.4 plus Brand-X template plus 5 other Joomla extensions and then they've tried to install K 1.6.4. Other people claim that they encountered the error after an unsuccessful earlier attempt to install K 1.6.4 in their "fresh version of Joomla" (but we don't know why the earlier attempt was unsuccessful).

So we really don't know too much about the circumstances that cause this "another menu item has same alias in root" error message to appear.

But the news is very encouraging. If your site really is a "fresh install of Joomla" then it takes less time to remove the site, drop the database tables, re-install J! 1.6.3 and K 1.6.4 than it takes to wait for an answer as to what could possibly be the problem.

The reason that people get "another menu item has same alias in root" is because there is another menu item that has the alias "forum" in your menu ... somewhere. What put it there? I don't know. Unfortunately, J! 1.6 is very fussy with the menu and this is probably something the Kunena development team need to look into. Why do J! 1.6 database tables become corrupted? We don't know the answer to that question, either.

How do you fix it? One solution is to work your way through Joomla's Menu Manager and root out any menus that have the alias "forum" in them. The other solution lies in delving into the Joomla database tables (jos_extensions and jos_menus) but I'm not going into those details here.