Why are Component links not showing up on my staging web site?

Question

None of the comp links in my staging website are getting resolved. I have checked that Tridion tag has been registered in web.config. Also the deployer output is given below.

<tridion:ComponentLink runat="server" ComponentURI="tcm:1-23" LinkText="something" 
                       LinkAttributes="" 
                       PageURI="tcm:1-34-64" TemplateURI="tcm:0-0-0" 
                       AddAnchor="false" TextOnFail="false" />

I have checked the cd_core log in debug mode and here are it's stamp. Please suggest.

2013-10-25 09:41:27,718 DEBUG ComponentLink - ComponentLink.getLinkInfo(): is not null
2013-10-25 09:41:27,718 DEBUG ComponentLink - ComponentLink.getLinkInfo(): read all published components for component 748
2013-10-25 09:41:27,718 DEBUG ComponentLink - ComponentLink Could not find metadata for page: 1666
2013-10-25 09:41:27,718 DEBUG ComponentLink - ComponentLink.getLink(): start retrieving pathinfo for this page: 1666
2013-10-25 09:41:27,718 DEBUG ComponentLink - Found component with score 2147483647
2013-10-25 09:41:27,718 INFO  ComponentLink - ComponentLink.getLink(): couldn't create a link to any other instance of component presentation 748:0 from page 1666

Update 1 - I am using Tridion 2011 SP1 and the same links works in dev and test.

Update 2 - Hi Bart, yes the TridionDB in deployer's storage config is different from the website's storage config. Is this the cause?

Answer 1

Looking at the results of your logfile it is resolving, but not finding a link:

2013-10-25 09:41:27,718 DEBUG ComponentLink - Found component with score 2147483647

This line tells you the link is resolved and it "found" a Component with the maximum score (which if I recall correctly means that the Component cannot be found on a published Page).

Then right after it you find a line which you will always see at the end of the resolve action:

2013-10-25 09:41:27,718 INFO ComponentLink - ComponentLink.getLink(): couldn't create a link to any other instance of component presentation 748:0 from page 1666

This line basically indicates the end of the resolve action. Please note that this line does NOT mean that no link could be found, it indicates resolving is done and no other results for your Component are available. As mentioned, the actual result you should find in the previous lines.

So what I can conclude from this is that either the Pages which the Component is on your are linking to are not Published, or your linking information isn't configured correctly. The latter could be a missmatch in the configuration from the Deployer and the actual website. To give you more details on this, please edit your question and add the required information (what version of SDL Tridion are you using, and what Deployer/website configuration to you have?).

Answer 2

If you have write access to the Staging server then you can try switching the TextOnFail attribute from "false" to "true" (and back). This will tell you whether the control is executing (and thus registered correctly).

If changing the TextOnFail attribute does affect whether or not the text is displayed on the rendered page, then it will be because the Tridion Content Delivery doesn't think that the Component that you are linking to is published.

Some things to check:

1. The connection details in your cd_Storage_conf.xml are correct (incl. Database connection strings and Publication overrides)
2. The 'Priority' of the Component Template that is rendering the Component (that you are linking to) is not set to 'Never link'.
3. That the Cache Channel Service is configured correctly. (You could try temporarily turning off the caching.)

UPDATE: It is also worth double-checking that you have definitely published the Component that you are linking to! Can you browse to the page that this is on?