Live Chat Widget Not Showing Up

Symptoms

Cause

The live chat widget was not added to the footer template through the usual layout.xml file, but through widget.xml

In this case, the exception log will show something similar to the following: 

#0 /home/user1/public_html/app/code/core/Mage/Core/Model/Layout.php(495): Mage::throwException('Invalid block t...')
#1 /home/user1/public_html/app/code/core/Mage/Core/Model/Layout.php(437): Mage_Core_Model_Layout-
>_getBlockInstance('chatbox/chatbox', Array)
#2 /home/user1/public_html/app/code/core/Mage/Core/Model/Layout.php(472): Mage_Core_Model_Layout-
>createBlock('chatbox/chatbox', '48958d0b714472a...')

Solution

Because the footer block cannot load the widget block properly, hole-punching for the public footer block needs to be disabled.

This can be accomplished by modifying config.xml to remove(comment out) the footer section. 

cd app/code/community/Litespeed/Litemage/etc/
vi config.xml

Remove the following: 

<footer>
    <access>public</access>
    <blocks>footer</blocks>
</footer>

or use <!-- --> to comment that section out: 

<!--  <footer>
    <access>public</access>
    <blocks>footer</blocks>
</footer> -->

Please be aware that the config.xml file will be overwritten when updating LiteMage and the above changes will need to be repeated. Do not use a copy of the old config file after updating as new fields will be added with each update.