Problem when Updating a Banner

Hi All ,
we are constantly getting an error on our OpenCart 1.5.1 Website when we try to go to System > Design > Banner

and update an existing banner we get the error:

Notice: Error: Duplicate column name 'description'
Error No: 1060
ALTER TABLE `gbs_banner_image_description` ADD `description` varchar(255) NOT NULL default 'banner description' in /home/wwwgreat/public_html/system/database/mysql.php on line 50

All fields are filled , images loaded. The error only comes up when updating an existing banner. All new banners created are fine. But the same new banners if we go to update them, causes an error.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

thanks

It appears to be telling you exactly where to look and exactly what do do there . . .

Sorry I do not follow.... what needs to be done. Sorry for sounding like a NOB, still very new to OpenCart.
Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

The one point I forgot to mention was that all this was working fine on a local server, but when we uploaded to our host we started to get this problem.

Nobody ever knows all there is to know about databases (or anything else). The tricky part is knowing, yourself, what you don't know. And new to OC isn't the same as new to databases or errors thrown.

Where "description" is duplicated as a column name, error code 1060 is thrown, and it's saying add "description" where it sees character [Alt]255 (that is an ascii hardspace which appears for all the world to be an ordinarily spacebarred typewritten space on paper or video). A complete nullity (null, nothing) is no character (nothing between ""). It appears that something may be scrambled where I'm seeing "/home/wwwgreat/public_html/" because the usual would be "/home/www/public_html/" instead. Where did "great" come from? (It won't be on the line 50, it's being summoned into place from there.)

All of that seems to mean is that you need to open the database and fix just that. You can use admin panel under Settings / Backup [/] Restore to obtain a backup (it'll be named *.sql), and then on your own machine make a safety copy of it before you edit it. You can bring it up in a text editor as-is, but you can also rename it to *.csv and bring it up as a spreadsheet. The difference is between rows' commas showing where columns are (they'll usually zigzag enough to bug you) and commas telling the spreadsheet to align in instantly discernible columns.

You can use Find to locate each hint (above) of what's wrong, look at all of the probably few of them, and then render a Replace All instances from the booboo(s) to the fix(es). You can ask it to find "great" easily. Whether nowadays you can ask it to find ascii character [Alt]255 depends upon the software (there was a time when ascii [Alt]255 was just another character and we used something called dos or predecessors to that and nobody had imagined windows but tube Univacs were already old hat). Save.

Then similarly Restore the edit and see if that works. You can Restore the safety copy if need be.

You may want to work during hours when nobody buys anything, but best is just click the Settings / Store and Edit to toggle the checkbox for Maintenance mode so that nobody can use the store and change the database while you're trying to fix that.

Servers vary quite a bit. If your local server is your own Win machine, it will ignore or take in stride characters that Unix or Linux machines will notice or not accept. (Classic example: ThisFile.txt and thisfile.txt are the same in Win, but entirely different files in ix/ux.)

Fuss back if that didn't help . . .

You have 2 elements with the same name. Change it and it will work.

sorry I dont see 2 elements in banner, banner_image or banner_image_description with the same name..ID or any similarities.

what type of element am I looking for ?

Hi People still cant figure this one out,

Every time i try to go to update the a Banner , with new discription or title I still get:

Notice: Error: Duplicate column name 'description'
Error No: 1060
ALTER TABLE `gbs_banner_image_description` ADD `description` varchar(255) NOT NULL default 'banner description' in /home/wwwgreat/public_html/system/database/mysql.php on line 50

Note that if I create a completely new banner, or image the problem does not persist.....

Any help would be deeply appreciated
Thank you

I think you have an extension running GBS? You should ask the developer of the extension.

See http://forum.opencart.com/viewtopic.php ... 42#p393419
as well as the posts just above and below it.

The "duplicate" problem springs from somewhere specific and springs to somewhere specific but for different reasons in different contexts (as between this and that thread). If a table "join" isn't springing out, then the "duplicate" is springing from somewhere among the files generating banners.