No Save Button in Joomla’s Backend – How to Fix

A client emailed us this Saturday morning and told us that he’s not able to see the Save button when he opens any content item for editing (such as articles, categories, modules, etc…). So we logged in to the backend of his website and we noticed that not only the Save button was missing, but also the following buttons: Save & Close, Save & New, Save as Copy, Versions, and Close. In fact, the whole toolbar was missing.

We immediately knew what the problem was: the Toolbar administrator module was disabled. This meant that all we needed to fix the problem was to re-enable the module, and we did it the following way:

• We went to Extensions -> Modules in the Joomla backend.

• On the left panel, we selected Administrator instead of Site from the first dropdown.

• We searched for Toolbar in the search box, and then we clicked on the red X next to Toolbar to enable the module.

• We then tried to edit a random article to check that the Save button was there (along with the other buttons in the toolbar) and it was. The problem was solved!

Of course, the million dollar question right now is what caused it to be disabled in the first place? Our answer is, we don’t know, and the client wasn’t really interested in knowing so we couldn’t do any investigation to discover how it was done. But we suspect it was done by someone who had legitimate access to the website, either intentionally or unintentionally. But again, we can’t be sure.

If you can’t see the Save button in the backend of your Joomla website, then most likely your Action Toolbar was disabled. You can re-enable it by following the above guide. If it doesn’t work for you, then make sure you delete your Joomla administrator cache (you can do this by wiping out the contents of the administrator/cache folder). If it still doesn’t work for you, then we suggest you contact us. Our fees are affordable, our work is top-notch, and we are reachable 24/7/365!