About 

Broken Link Fixer (brofix) is an extension which enables you to conveniently check your website for broken links. This manual explains how to install, configure and use the extension.

The extension was started using the core EXT:linkvalidator source code and documentation but is now an independent project.

What does it do? 

Broken Link Fixer checks the links in your website, reports broken links and provides a way to fix these problems.

It includes the following features:

• Broken Link Fixer can check all kinds of links. This includes internal links to pages and content elements, file links to files in the local file system and external links to files somewhere else in the web.
• Broken Link Fixer checks a number of fields by default, for example header fields and text fields of content elements. It can be configured to check any field you like (via TSconfig).
• A console command can be setup to check automatically. This can also generate a report which is sent via email.
• Broken Link Fixer is extendable. It provides hooks to check special types of links or override how the checking of external, file and page links works.

Difference to linkvalidator 

Broken Links Fixer was forked off linkvalidator but then developed independantly, which made it possible to make more significant changes:

• improved user interface with better handling of list of broken links:

  • sort (by page, link type, link target, error type etc.)
  • paginate (if more than 100 broken links are displayed)
  • filter the broken link list, e.g. by URL
  • "clickfilter": filter by content element or URL by click
  • possible to recheck for a specific URL by clicking a button "Check link again" - all broken link records with this target will be updated if status changes
  • more descriptive (flash) messages to show what is going on
  • visible hints for "stale" broken link records (e.g. if content element was edited after last link check)
• more visibility of broken links by showing number of broken links for the page in the page module (if EXT:page_callouts is installed)

• better handling of external links

  • possibility to exclude links from being checked to avoid false positives
  • link target cache to avoid frequent rechecking of external links
  • crawl delay: automatically delay between checking links of one domain

• link checking

  • the scheduler task was replaced by a console command
  • it is not necessary to specify the start pid, if no pid is given, the site configuration is used
  • configuration from Global Configuration is used, if not explicitly specified in link configuration (e.g. from email address)
  • the broken link records are not removed and created again, but updated. In linkvalidator, the entire list (for current check criteria) is removed at beginning of link check. This might result in duplicates and in broken links missing during link check.
  • content fields are not checked if they are not editable in the BE. This includes permission checks (which linkvalidator also handles), but also checks via FormEnginge - for example tt_content.bodytext is not editable in the BE for plugins. If CE types are switching in content elements, this can be a problem with linkvalidator.
  • broken link records are automatically removed via DataHandler hook if a record is deleted.

Credits 

This extension is based on the TYPO3 core extension EXT:linkvalidator. It was forked from the source code of linkvalidator. Thus, it is based on the work of the original authors and maintainers.

false positives 

These are URL which were falsely detected as broken. They are valid URLs which Broken Link Fixer detects as broken.

link source 

You can think of a link as a connection between 2 points, the link source and the link target.

The link source, is where the link is defined, e.g. in the text of a content element.

Link Source ----->  Link target

Understanding link source and link target can be helpful to understand how Broken Link Fixer works. Some things affect the link target (the URL), such as link target excluding.

link target 

The link target is where the link points to. This is usually an URL, such as http://example.org/example. It can also be a page or a file.

on-the-fly checking 

"On-the-fly" checking means almost immediate link checking as soon as the record is saved. This is in contrast to periodic link checking via the console command.

stale links 

These are links, where the broken link status is "stale", meaning it may be outdated. For example the broken link is still shown in the list while the record has already been updated and the broken link fixed.

page_callouts 

It is recommended to install the extension page_callouts as well, as it will supply the hook / event to show information about broken links in the page module.

Installation of page_callouts

composer require sypets/page-callouts

Minimal configuration 

# email recipients
mod.brofix.mail.recipients = recipient@example.org

# Add contact information here, such as an email address or a URL which contains an email address
mod.brofix.linktypesConfig.external.headers.User-Agent =  Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Site link checker; +https://gratesturff.com/imprint.html)

# pid of a page of type folder - this is where the exclude link target
# records are stored
mod.brofix.excludeLinkTarget.storagePid = 20

brofix:checklinks 

Check for broken links

This will use the settings from the TSconfig configuration. If no start pages are supplied as arguments, all start pages that have a site configuration are used.

Links will be checked based on the configured linktypes and searchFields if they have supported TCA configuration.

After completion, an email is sent (if configured, see also -e / --send-email below) for each site or start page (see also -p option).

You can run the console command from the command line (or cron) or configure it in the scheduler (Task: Execute console commands | Schedulable Command: brofix:checklinks).

The following examples show the console commands in a Composer installation.

# Use -h to show all parameters:
vendor/bin/typo3 brofix:checklinks -h

Do not execute link checking, just show what configuration is used:

vendor/bin/typo3 brofix:checklinks --dry-run

If everything is already configured via TSconfig, you don't need any arguments:

vendor/bin/typo3 brofix:checklinks

Execute link checking, send an email to webmaster@example.org:

vendor/bin/typo3 brofix:checklinks --to webmaster@example.org

# Use 1 and 123 as start pages
vendor/bin/typo3 brofix:checklinks -p 1 -p 2

# Check only the page given, do not traverse page tree
vendor/bin/typo3 brofix:checklinks -p 1,123 -d 0

# send email only if broken links were found
vendor/bin/typo3 brofix:checklinks -e any

Backend user configuration 

Give your backend users / user groups permission to the "Check Links" (web_brofix) module.

Give backend users / user groups permission to the table tx_brofix_exclude_link_target, if they should be able to add URLs to the list of URLs not to be checked. (This requires a certain amount of prudence and understanding, otherwise this feature may be misused.)

In this case, you must also set TSconfig excludeLinkTarget.storagePid to a page of type system folder. The editors must have access to this page (to be able to save records on this page).

Global Configuration 

The global configuration affects not just brofix but the behaviour of other extensions as well.

If mod.brofix.mail.sendOnCheckLinks is 1, an email will be sent. You can override this in the console command. If an email should be sent, you should configure the recipient and sender address.

You can configure the following settings to set the from address globally (or you can set it specifically for brofix via TSconfig):

$GLOBALS['TYPO3_CONF_VARS']['MAIL']['defaultMailFromName'] = 'Webmaster';
$GLOBALS['TYPO3_CONF_VARS']['MAIL']['defaultMailFromAddress'] = 'webmaster@example.org';

This determines whether an html mail is sent, a text mail or both:

$GLOBALS['TYPO3_CONF_VARS']['MAIL']['format'] = 'both';

The template path is already added in this extension in ext_localconf.php, but only if the slot 901 is still free:

$GLOBALS['TYPO3_CONF_VARS']['MAIL']['templateRootPaths'][901]
   = 'EXT:brofix/Resources/Private/Templates/Email';
$GLOBALS['TYPO3_CONF_VARS']['MAIL']['partialRootPaths'][901]
   = 'EXT:brofix/Resources/Private/Partials';

If not, you need to set this yourself, if a mail should be submitted when link checking is performed, using the default template in this extension.

Extension Configuration 

Is handled on separate page: Extension configuration.

Tsconfig 

Is handled on separate page: TSconfig Reference.

EXT:backend 

$GLOBALS['TYPO3_CONF_VARS']['EXTENSIONS']['backend']['login.loginLogo'] = 'EXT:my_theme/Resources/Public/Images/login-logo.png or //domain.tld/login-logo.png';

EXT:brofix 

<errorType> ":" <errorCode> ":" <exceptionMessage>

httpStatusCode:401:

regex:/^(httpStatusCode:(401|403):|libcurlErrno:60:SSL certificate problem: unable to get local issuer certificate)/

$GLOBALS['TYPO3_CONF_VARS']['EXTENSIONS']['brofix']['traverseMaxNumberOfPagesInBackend'] = 1000;

User-Agent 

required

linktypes 

optional

searchFields.[table] 

optional

excludeCtype 

optional

doNotCheckContentOnPagesDoktypes 

optional

doNotCheckPagesDoktypes 

optional

doNotCheckLinksOnWorkspace 

optional

reportHiddenRecords 

optional

Accept 

optional

Accept-Language 

optional

Accept-Encoding 

optional

timeout 

optional

redirects 

optional

excludeLinkTarget.storagePid 

required (if "exclude URL" functionality should be available for non-admin editors)

excludeLinkTarget.allowed 

optional

linkTargetCache.expiresLow 

optional

linkTargetCache.expiresHigh 

optional

crawlDelay.seconds 

optional

crawlDelay.nodelay 

optional

report.docsurl 

optional

report.recheckButton 

optional

mail.sendOnCheckLinks 

optional

mail.recipients 

required

mail.fromname 

required (unless set in $GLOBALS['TYPO3_CONF_VARS']['MAIL']['defaultMailFromName'])

mail.replytoemail 

optional

mail.replytoname 

optional

mail.subject 

optional

If this is not set explicitly, a subject will be auto-generated.

mail.template 

optional

Always uses the default template CheckLinksResults if not supplied.

mail.language 

optional

The report 

This section covers some more details of the list of broken links.

depth selector 

What Broken Link Fixer will show depends on the currently selected page (in the page tree). Additionally, you can show broken link information on subpages. This depends on the depth, that is selected:

• This page: shows only broken links on current page
• 1 level: shows broken links on current page and direct subpages of this page
• 2 levels: additionally show broken links on subpages of the subpages
• etc.

This is the same behaviour as in the "Pagetree Overview", also in the Info module.

Using a high level (e.g. "infinite") may be useful for getting an overview. But, depending on the number of pages and broken links found, working with this may feel sluggish and slow. It is recommended to use a low level when working with the list (e.g. "This page").

table 

Columns in the table:

1. Page: The title and [page id] are shown.
2. Element: The record in which the broken link was found in. A language icon may be displayed. The header of the element (if available) and the [uid] are displayed.
3. Type: This shows the type of the record (e.g. "Page Content", "Page", "News") and the field the broken link is found in (e.g. "Text", "Link").

5. Link target: The link target (e.g. the URL or target page). You can click on it, to open it in another browser tab.
6. Error: The error that occurred, e.g. "Page not found". Hover over the text with the mouse to see the original exception message.

7. Checked: The last check time of the link target or when the element was last checked (whichever is older). Since a link target cache is used for external URLs, the check time may be before the check time of the element in column 2. If you loaded the URL in the browser and feel the information displayed is not up to date, you can press the "Recheck URL" button.

   If the record was edited after the last check, the broken link information may be outdated. It does not mean, it will always be outdated, as the record may have been edited without changing the links, but it is an indicator, that it might be a good idea to recheck. In this case, you can click on the "Recheck URL" button .

   The following is displayed:

   • if (possibly) outdated: red background and a recheck icon.

8. Action: Action buttons:

   • Edit: Edit the field containing this broken link
   • Refresh URL: Rechecks the URL and removes the broken link record if the URL is ok or the broken link is no longer in the record. This is the only checking action which will actually check external URLs and refresh the link target cache.
   • Exclude URL: Only use this for "false positives" (if the URL is ok, but displayed as broken). Always "Recheck URL" first. This button opens a form to create an "Exclude URL" record. Once this is stored, all broken link records related to this URL are removed. In all subsequents checks, the URL is treated as valid and is not rechecked!

Excluding link targets 

In the module "Check links" the action button "Permanently exclude ..." appears for every broken link record.

This is only available for external link targets by default, but can be configured differently.

As soon as the button is clicked, an edit dialog appears which makes it possible to select a "reason" and add additional notes.

Once you press save, all broken link records stored in brofix for this link target will be removed and the broken links will no longer be displayed in the list of broken links.

Manage exclusions module 

The management of broken links excluded is done in the module "Manage exclusions" which is a submodule of "Check Links".

This module allows you to list the excluded link targets using the provided filters.

The following functionality is available:

• List and filter the excluded link targets
• Select exclude link targets and delete them
• Export excluded link targets as CSV file

False positives 

The main problem with external links are false positives where the automatic link checking will report a problem even though the URL is ok.

Link target cache 

The result for external URLs is stored in the link target cache. This is an internal storage, which saves the last result of the check. This way it is not always necessary to recheck the external URL. The cache has an expiration date, by default this is one week.

Because of this, the displayed information may not be up to date. Clicking the "Recheck URL" button will always refresh the information.

Since the status of external URLs will not change very often, the link target cache is not a problem and considerably speeds up link checking. Also it reduces network traffic and load on external servers.

Because of the above mentioned problem of the false positives, it is a good idea anyway to verify the result by loading the URL in the browser.

Once you work more with Broken Link Fixer and fixing the links in your site, you will get a better judgement when checking an external URL yourself is necessary.

Issues 

For more known problems see the list of issues:

• https://github.com/sypets/brofix/issues

Counter measures for problems with external links 

There are (at least) 3 possible counter-measures:

1. Turn off external link checking entirely

   by removing "external" from Page TSconfig mod.brofix.linktypes:

   page TSconfig

   mod.brofix.linktypes = db,file

   Copied!

2. Override the ExternalLinktype class

   Alternatively you can override the ExternalLinktype class (in your own extension) and for example check only specific URLs or exclude specific URLs or handle only specific error types as errors.

3. "Manage Exclusions"

   The third possibility leaves it up to the editors to exclude specific URLs if there are problems: You can give them permission to exclude URLs or domains, see Exclude link targets.

When link checking is done 

1. Via console command (or scheduler), a full link check of the entire sites or specific pages can be performed
2. "on-the-fly" checking: When editing a record by pressing the blue "edit" action button in the list of broken links, a recheck is performed when returning to the list. This only checks the links in the edited field.
3. If records or pages are deleted or set to inactive (hidden=1), the corresponding broken link records are removed immediately.
4. It is possible to manually start (re)checking by pressing the "Check links" button in the list. This will check all links on the current page and subpages (depending on the selected depth, e.g. 2 levels). This is by default not active for editors (to avoid excessive rechecking), but can be configured to be available.
5. It is possible to recheck the current link by pressing the "Recheck URL" button. This is faster than the previous option and can be useful, if only a few broken link records need to be rechecked.

It is recommended to configure the console command to perform a full check regularly (e.g. once a day).

Due to normal editing activity some of the broken link information can become outdated between the full checks, which can be handled either with the "Recheck URL" button (for recheck for one broken link) or with the "Check links" button to check an entire page or page and subpages.

The fifth option (Recheck URL) is the only action where the link target cache is not used. This can be used to refresh the information about the link target.

What is checked 

By default, links are not checked on hidden records or records on hidden pages. In general, if content is not rendered in the frontend, it does not make sense to check the content. Thus, the following are also not checked:

• Content on pages with page type "Shortcut" or "Link to external URL".
• Content of default language on pages with the option "Hide default language of page" enabled
• Subpages or content on subpages of a hidden page with "Extend to subpages" enabled
• Content in a hidden gridelement

Link target cache 

In general, we try to avoid excessive checking, especially when it comes to external URLs.

Checking external URLs has the following problems:

• network traffic is generated
• external sites may be bombarded with requests in rapid succession - in general it is recommended to wait between requests to the same site (crawl delay). If external sites get too many requests (in a timeframe), this may even result in our site getting blocked.
• checking an external URL may take a few seconds to complete - redirects are followed, which may result in several requests and each single request may take several seconds - thus, it is undeterministic. Using this mechanism for on-the-fly checking is problematic, because we want to obtain the results immediately.

For this reason, the following mechanisms are used:

• The results of external link checking is cached. This means, if an URL is checked more than once before the cache expires, the results from the cache are used.
• Crawl delay, see next section.

This has the drawback, that the broken link information may be outdated, because the link target has changed its status.

However, the advantages are that link checks are faster and less external link checking is performed.

If information about an external URL is outdated, the recheck URL button can be used to refresh.

This will recheck the URL and also update all other broken link records, if the link target status changed.

Crawl delay 

If several URLs of one domain are checked, we wait at least this amount of time before the next request (this is only done when checking via the console command, not for on-the-fly checking).

Exclude link targets 

It is a known problem, that the automatic checking does not always yield the correct result, specifically the link is shown as broken, but it works (e.g. by checking in the browser). These are known as "false positives". This is rare but may happen for a handful of different URLs in your site.

As a workaround, it is possible to add a specific URL or specific domain to an exclude list. In this case, the URL will be treated as if valid. It will no longer show up in the report. As soon as the URL is excluded, all existing broken link records are removed. Adding an URL to the exclude list can be conveniently done by clicking on a button in the list of broken links.

For more information about the usage see Exclude link targets.

Examples 

use Myvendor\MyExtension\Linktype\MyExternalLinktype;

$GLOBALS['TYPO3_CONF_VARS']['EXTCONF']['brofix']['checkLinks']['external'] = MyExternalLinktype::class;

<?php

declare(strict_types=1);
namespace Myvendor\MyExtension\Linktype;

use Sypets\Brofix\Linktype\ErrorParams;
use Sypets\Brofix\Linktype\ExternalLinktype;

class ExternalUniolLinktype extends ExternalLinktype
{
      public function checkLink(string $origUrl, array $softRefEntry, int $flags = 0): bool
      {
            // do some checking here, if $origUrl should get checked ..

            $isValidUrl = parent::checkLink($origUrl, $softRefEntry, $this->flags);
            if (!$isValidUrl) {
               $exceptionMsg = $this->errorParams->getExceptionMsg();
               // highly probably certificate chain issue, which should be treated as edge case false positive
               // curl(60): 'SSL certificate problem: unable to get local issuer certificate'
               if ($exceptionMsg === 'SSL certificate problem: unable to get local issuer certificate') {
                   return true;
               }
           }
           return $isValidUrl;
      }
}

7.0 

6.2 

6.0.0-6.1.x 

3.2.0 

• Remove page layout action button (due to inconsistencies in usability): https://github.com/sypets/brofix/pull/200
• Add new icon

3.1.0 

• pages with some pages types (e.g. 'recycler' or 'mount point') will not be checked. This is configurable, see the configuration options in TSconfig: doNotCheckContentOnPagesDoktypes, doNotCheckPagesDoktypes doNotTraversePagesDoktypes

3.0.0 

• [BREAKING] Move the module from the Info module to its own module. This requires changes in the editor configuration: Give the editors permission to the "brofix" module.

2.3.0 

• Rename branch master => main
• Add module for "Manage Exclusions"

2.2.0 

Update to 2.2.0 requires updating the database.

• Add support for TYPO3 v11
• Add crdate to table. This will later make it possible to detect new broken links (or broken links recently detected).
• Add start and stop time to check links email report
• Change order of settings in check links email report
• Add additional setting mod.brofix.mail.language to set the language of the email report.
• Do not check records of default language if l18n_cfg is 1 or 3 ("Hide default language of page")
• Also consider if records should be checked on page if rechecking URL or fields.
• Optimize external link checking: Do not use extra headers Accept-Language and Accept-Encoding by default. This causes problems with some websites.
• Optimize pagination: Do not show pagination controls if there is only one page

2.1.1 

• Fix setting of depth=0 via CLI command brofix:checklinks (issue:69)
• Fix fatal error: Exception was thrown on CLI command checklinks if replytoemail was set (due to call to not existing function). (issue:66)
• Fix version constraints (in ext_emconf.php)

2.1.0 

!!! Change in SQL: It is required to do database compare and recheck links.

• UI optimization: use card layout instead of table for small screens
• Add editable restrictions: Show only broken links the editor has access to.

2.0.2 

• "Check links" button is always available for admins, but deactivated for editors by default
• Change styling for "Last check" field if information is considered "fresh".

2.0.1 

• add "freshness" / "stale" information in "Last check" column in broken link report
• add "Last check" time for the URL as well. Because of the "link target" cache, the "last check" information for the field and the URL may differ.
• Add "Check links" button to report

2.0.0 

• Support for TYPO3 9 was dropped
• bugfix: Do not use FlashMessages in DataHandler hook
• several improvements in broken link list
• It is now possible to recheck URLs from the GUI via a button. This is configurable (report.recheckButton).
• It is checked if record was edited after last check. In that case the broken link information may be "stale" (outdated). This is shown in the list along with the time of the last check.
• The last check time of the URLs are shown as well. Since the check status is cached, this may differ from the time when the record was last checked. While this may be confusing (to show different values), it makes the behaviour more transparent.

1.0.4 

• Add --send-email and --dry-run option to command controller
• Add more output to command controller
• Fix formatting of floats in email

> 1.0.0 

• bug fixing

1.0.0 

Supports TYPO3 9 and 10

• Initial version, change extension key to "brofix" (Broken Link Fixer)

GUI: page module

• Shows message in page module, if broken links on page (depends on ext:page_callouts to add hook)

GUI: RTE

• Links to hidden or deleted CE are also marked as broken as RTE (as they are also reported as broken by brofix)

GUI: broken link report

• List was decluttered:

  • Only page title is displayed (not full page path)
  • short localized error messages are used.
  • Show a short date format for "last checked" (only hours and minutes, not the date if timestamp is today)
• Sorting: It is now possible to sort by page / element, content type, URL or error type
• "Check links" tab was removed
• All links types are always displayed, no need to check checkboxes
• In the report, the broken links of the just edited record are displayed in a different color. This makes it easier to keep track if jumping back and forth from the edit form to the list of broken links.
• Show an informational message if no page is selected in the page tree.
• Reload list immediately, if form was changed. Since there is currently only a select list, it does not make sense to have to click a button additionally to changing the value in the select field.

Link checking

• Use console command instead of scheduler task
• Previously, all records in the broken links table (of currently to be checked pages) were removed at the beginning of the check. This resulted in inconsistent results, especially during checks which took longer than just a few minutes. Now, the records are not removed, but the existing records are updated (if they already exist) or are inserted (if new). This way, the link check results are mostly up-to-date.
• Crawl delay: A minimum wait time between 2 checks of URLs of the same domain. The crawl delay is not used in on-the-fly checking.
• Link target "cache": External URLs are now stored in a persistent "cache" table. The duration (expiration time) is configurable: Thus, on-the-fly checking is faster because the cache is used.
• Exclude link targets: For the still existing problem of false positives, it is possible to exclude URLs (or domains) from link checking. Excluded URLs are treated as valid URLs. URLs can be excluded by clicking a button in the link list and then editing the record. Permissions for editors are restricted and must explicitly be granted.
• A timestamp of the last check is added to the broken links table and obsolete records (e.g. belonging to a removed page) are removed at the end of the link checking.
• Links in fields, which are not editable, are no longer checked. Previously, the fields which were configured to be checked were always checked, independently of the content type (CType) or page type (doktype). However, for some types, content is not relevant such as bodytext for plugins or the URL for normal page types. Furthermore, it is not possible to edit these as editor and the editor would get an error message. These broken links stayed in the list of broken links and there was no way to remove them. Now, only editable fields are checked.
• Do not check records if in hidden gridelement.

Email report

• Shows additional statistics, such as number of pages checked, number of links checked, percentage of broken links to number of checked links. Especially the percentage of broken links to total number of links can be used as an indicator for the "site health".
• The number of broken links is added to the subject of the email. This way, it is not necessary to click on each email to see the most relevant numbers.

Development

• Setup unit and functional tests (see Build directory)
• Added .editorconfig

Impact 

• performance improvements (depending on number of pages)

Migration 

php vendor/bin/typo3 database:updateschema
vendor/bin/typo3 upgrade:run brofix_copyPidToPageid

Details about change 

For users of brofix, it is not necessary to read this. It provides further details for developers of this extension.

Adding the field record_pageid to the database table tx_brofix_broken_links makes it possible to simplify a number of database queries and improve the sorting of elements.

Previously, it was always necessary to query if tx_brofix_broken_links.table_name containes 'pages' or not and then use either record_uid or record_pid as field to obtain the page id. The previous behavior doubled the number of parameters in prepared statement.

This used to not be a big problem in previous versions because a workaround was introduced chunking the array of page ids if they reached a certain limit so the query did not reach the number of parameters in prepared statement limit. Reducing the limit to 50% might result in performance improvement in cases with large number of pages.

Additionally, the array chunking made it impossible to properly paginate fetching only the items for the current page, which also has a performance impact.

So, due to this change, further performance improvements are possible in the future.

Migration 

php vendor/bin/typo3 database:updateschema
php vendor/bin/typo3 upgrade:run brofix_urlHashUpgradeWizard

Impact 

There were some changes to the database and the LinktypeInterface. See "Migration" for necessary actions.

Also, there was a change to the backend module: A new filter "Check status:" was added to filter broken links by status. By default, only broken links are shown (as before this change).

Migration 

Update any custom classes implementing LinktypeInterface to address changes to the interface. In particular, the checkLinks() method will now return LinkTargetResult instead of int.

Also, a database update must be performed to address the changed schema.

The tables tx_brofix_broken_links and tx_brofix_link_target_cache should be emptied. This can be done by performing the Upgrade wizard "Truncate tables tx_brofix_broken_links and tx_brofix_link_target_cache".

Some language labels have been added, it is advised to join Crowdin and contribute translations.

Also, a new select field "Check status" was added to the Broken Link list module: It is recommended to advise editors about this, but it should not be a problem. Editors can just use the default selection (only show broken links).

Migration 

No migration necessary.

Migration 

As the old values will still work, no change is necessary, but it is recommended to use the new string values instead of the old numeric values.

Info 

• TSconfig mail.sendOnCheckLinks
• Command / scheduler option send-email

Migration 

No migration necessary. It might make sense to inform the BE users about this.

Implementation 

Which Flexform fields are visible is determined by the fields defined in the Flexform XML schema, just as is the case for other fields. When the values are written to the database field (e.g. tt_content.pi_flexform), this may include older fields which will no longer be displayed. However, if we get the schema from the processed TCA, we process only the fields which would be displayed in the Backend.

How do we determine which fields should be checked and how?

We use the type (and other TCA configuration in the Flexform schema) and only parse fields which have a type which might include links, e.g.

• if the "softref" field is set, we get the list of softref parsers from this field
• if "enableRichtext" is set (but softref not), we use the "typolink_tag" parser key
• type "link" and type "input" with "renderType" "inputLink" use the "typolink" softref parser key
• more field types (such as "file") will be supported in the future

Using this new feature 

1. Add your Flexform fields to the search fields, for example:

   mod.brofix.searchFields.tt_content = bodytext,header_link,records,pi_flexform

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2. In the extension configuration for brofix, set tcaProcessing to "full"
3. Check your fields in your Flexform configuration, to make sure, you are using field configuration which will be checked by brofix (see the "Implementation" section), such as type "link-t3tca-columns-link-since-typo3-v12-and-set-the-correct-refsoftref <t3tca:tca_property_softref>".
4. Check your links

Caveats 

This new feature comes with some caveats:

1. It is not possible to edit the field with the broken link directly: When clicking the edit button in the broken link list, an edit dialog is opened for all fields in the flexform while for non-Flexform fields, the edit dialog will show only the affected field. The advantage of showing only the affected field is that it is easier to find the broken link, especially in non-RTE fields where the broken link is not highlighted. (The reason for this caveat is that it is not possible currently with core functionality using the record_edit route.)
2. It is not possible to specify directly which fields in the Flexform will be checked. The fields which are checked is derived directly form the field configuration (type, renderType, enableRichtext and softref).
3. In order for the Flexform processing to work the full record is fetched from the database. This makes the process possibly slightly slower and less efficient, but should not have a big impact.

Some of these caveats may be addressed in future releases.

Combination with extensions 

Description 

Previously, a form showing only the field with the broken link is opened, if clicking the "pencil" button in the Broken Link Fixer report.

This is not ideal in some cases because relevant context is missing, for example when editing redirect records.

For this reason, it is now possible to also edit the full record, but this is configurable (see Extension Configuration).

Impact 

A new button is now displayed in the broken link list BE module, in addition to the already existing button. The buttons have the following functionality:

1. button to edit only the field (same as before)
2. button to edit the entire record (which contains an additional icon)

If this makes sense depends on which records / fields are checked and if it is helpful to have more context. If not, this can be deactivated in the Extension Configuration.