[TYPO3-english] Conference Management (pt_conference) Help

[Paul Omernik]

I am attempting to set up a conference site in TYPO3 using the Conference
Management extension (pt_conference). When attempting to view a page like,
speaker registration, I will sometimes receive an error saying:

Extension key "pt_conference" was NOT loaded! typo3 t3lib_extMgm::extPath

This warning will appear once; upon a page refresh, no page content, besides
the page title, is displayed in the body of the template. If I clear the
cache and reload the page, it displays again, but another refresh 'breaks'
it again. Setting the page to not keep its cache has no effect on correcting
the refresh issue; setting the page to not keep its cache will keep this
error from appearing, but treating the symptoms is not treating the problem.

It (pt_conference) is, quite obviously installed in the back end. I am not
sure if localconf.php should have a separate line citing pt_conference, but
the only instance of pt_conference occurs in
$TYPO3_CONF_VARS['EXT']['extList']. I would be surprised if there wasn't
supposed to be another key entered into localconf.php, by the pt_conference
install, especially since much simpler extensions are cited on their own
lines.

When attempting to view speakers' registered papers in the back end I will
get a message indicating: 'DATABASE ERROR!' with no other clues as to what
database it is looking for, why the database doesn't exist (perhaps?), why
it isn't using the existing TYPO3 database, or any type of useful indicator.
I have looked at the HTML source to try and find clues, but that was not
fruitful. My MySQL and PHP knowledge are fairly limited, but my poking
around in phpMyAdmin has not turned up anything glaringly wrong.

It seems that the order of operations for installing items pertaining to
TYPO3, like Conference Management, is quite important. Why is this? What is
the correct order of operations, if one exists? In a related note, the
Conference Management extension manual says, "...for the correct operation
of 'Conference visitors area/Conference Registration' plugin it's necessary
to have some tutorials in the papers database table, that are marked as
accepted tutorials." The reasoning, I believe, is so that when people
register for the conference, they may select a talk or tutorial to attend.
Okay, that's fine. But editing the database to create 'faux' accepted
tutorials isn't something I have had success with yet--I can't even locate a
table advertising itself as accepted tutorials; I honestly don't know
whether or not acceptance of a tutorial creates the database to which
conference registrants are added, or if it is something completely
different.

I find further frustration in that when I am in the BE I can 'View' the
Visitor's Area and Speakers' Area Registration pages, but when I go to view
them in the FE they 'break', and have the same, hauntingly-empty template
mentioned previously: I change and re-save some minor attribute, it works—I
refresh again, *poof*.

I have a server to play around on, so if the solution involves some major
overhaul, there is no real substance to lose. I have sat down to RTFM, and
can't ascertain any fixes from further re-readings.  It's like I'm at a
point where I just need a little push up the learning curve for everything
to fall into place, or am missing something stupidly easy, but I can't seem
to locate the issue to bring everything into focus.