Understand requested and effective Help4 state
The Joomla component stores requested policy locally, while the registered Help4 site and plan determine effective CDN, WAF, bot, routing, scan, and access behavior.
Status fields
| Field | Meaning | Healthy evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Site ID | Tenant-scoped Help4 control-plane identity. | Present after successful synchronization. |
| Plan | Current service entitlement reported by Help4. | Matches the intended Free, Pro, or Enterprise service. |
| License | Domain/plugin entitlement state. | Active or the expected onboarding state. |
| Last sync | Most recent successful license/site synchronization. | Recent and followed by current public behavior. |
| Last purge / scan | Latest accepted operation request. | Accepted or queued; verify completion separately. |
Configuration groups
Connection
Tenant API key/secret or a specifically required legacy token. Blank credential fields preserve stored values.
Cache policy
Respect-origin or custom browser max-age, optional immutable assets, and automatic content invalidation.
Proxy and WAF
Static-only or full proxy, WAF off/basic/strict, sensitivity, bot mode, and optional public HTML caching.
Transport and headers
HTTPS redirect, HSTS, nosniff, frame/referrer policy, gzip, Brotli, HTTP/2, and minimum response bytes.
Enterprise access
IP, country, ASN, user-agent, and path lists with an explicit default action.
Operations
Site synchronization, selected-path/domain purge, managed scan, and last-result timestamps.
Troubleshooting
| Symptom | Likely cause | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Package install fails | Unsupported Joomla/PHP version, altered ZIP, or filesystem permission. | Use the original package on Joomla 5.4/6 and PHP 8.1+, verify checksum, then inspect Joomla installer logs. |
| No Help4 CDN component | Only a constituent ZIP was installed or installation was incomplete. | Install the outer package ZIP and verify all three extensions. |
| Changes do not auto-clear | Content plugin disabled, auto management off, or site ID missing. | Enable the plugin, synchronize, and keep automatic management selected. |
| Sync fails | Wrong tenant credential, DNS/hostname mismatch, or unreachable control plane. | Confirm the production host and private credentials without exposing them in support output. |
| Policy saves locally but is ineffective | Plan entitlement, DNS validation, or proxy state does not permit the requested control. | Check the effective site state and client-area entitlement before changing policy again. |
| Administrator becomes inaccessible | Overbroad path/IP/country/ASN rule or strict WAF false positive. | Use the independent recovery path, disable the narrow offending rule, then retest administrator and login. |
| Public page is stale | Wrong canonical path, browser cache, or failed automatic purge. | Clear the exact path, verify body marker/hash and POP headers, then use a domain clear only if broad. |
Support evidence
Provide the domain, timestamp in UTC, Joomla and extension versions, Help4 site ID, requested action, response status, public POP/cache/policy headers, and a sanitized error message. Do not include API keys, secrets, tokens, cookies, administrator session data, or private content.
curl -sSI https://example.com/affected-path
curl -sS https://example.com/affected-path | openssl dgst -sha256