SQL Query error when displaying article list

Question

I am running a number of sites on the same server. All are updated to Joomla 3.8.2 Suddenly some of them but not all have the following problem.

When I list the articles I get a list of the first 20 articles. URL: http://DOMAIN/administrator/index.php?option=com_content

After clicking the next button I get an error 500:

You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '' at line 9

You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'ORDER BY a.id desc LIMIT 20' at line 11

You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '' at line 9

From here I can only go back to the control panel. From now on the article list immediately gives the error 500

After logging out and in I get the list of the first 20 items again. What could be wrong here and how do I solve this?

Answer 1

I can think of 2 things:

• A plugin that is causing this mess
• A core modification that was implemented to optimize the article loading process but is incompatible with Joomla 3.8.2

First, try disabling system/content plugins one by one until the problem is resolved. If it is not, then try "refreshing" the Joomla core files by copying over a fresh copy of Joomla onto your site (make sure you backup your website first, and make sure you remove the installation folder before copying the files over).