Custom blocks not being rendered - magento

Question

I have developed a collections module for a clients Magento site. Among other things, this module pulls in product details (media, description, attributes) on the category listing page. The issue I am running into is that my blocks are not rendering on the clients site (Magento EE 1.8), even though everything works locally (Magento CE 1.6).
Developer mode has been activated, but I see no errors on the page, and I know that Magento is seeing the module as it correctly shows up in the admin under System > Configuration > Advanced.
We set the base block class name in app/code/local/Mycompany/Collections/etc/config.xml
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<config>
<modules>
<Mycompany_Collections>
<version>0.1.0</version>
</Mycompany_Collections>
</modules>
<global>
<blocks>
<mycompany_collections>
<class>Mycompany_Collections_Block</class>
</mycompany_collections>
</blocks>
</global>
</config>
We insert our blocks to the layout in app/design/frontend/enterprise/mytheme/layout/local.xml
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<layout version="0.1.0">
<catalog_category_view>
<reference name="product_list">
<block type="mycompany_collections/collection" name="collection" template="collections/collection.phtml">
<block type="mycompany_collections/product" name="add-to-cart" template="collections/product/add-to-cart.phtml" />
<block type="mycompany_collections/product" name="description" template="catalog/product/view/description.phtml" />
<block type="mycompany_collections/product_attributes" name="attributes" template="catalog/product/view/attributes.phtml" />
<block type="mycompany_collections/product_media" name="media" template="catalog/product/view/media.phtml" />
</block>
</reference>
</catalog_category_view>
</layout>
The mycompany_collections/collection block extends Mage_Catalog_Block_Product_List and reloads the products to ensure we have fetched all the relevant data from the database.
class Mycompany_Collections_Block_Collection extends Mage_Catalog_Block_Product_List {
public function reloadProducts() {
// Fully reload each of the products in this category so that we have
// all the information required to display product details.
// TODO: find a more efficient way to grab all the info for all the
// products, as this would seem to add 1 (or more) additional
// query per product.
$reloaded = array();
foreach($this->getParentBlock()->getLoadedProductCollection() as $product){
$reloaded[] = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')->load($product->getId());
}
return $reloaded;
}
}
The mycompany_collections/product block extends Mage_Catalog_Block_Product_Abstract with custom methods to allow us to explicitly set the product on the block and return that product without pulling from the registry.
class Mycompany_Collections_Block_Product extends Mage_Catalog_Block_Product_Abstract {
private $_product = null;
public function _prepareLayout() {
// We don't need to do anything here.
}
// NOTE: Must be called before ->toHtml()
public function setProduct($product) {
$this->_product = $product;
return $this;
}
public function getProduct() {
return $this->_product;
}
}
Both the mycompany_collections/product_attributes and mycompany_collections/product_media blocks do the same get/set_product overrides for their equivalent abstract parent classes.
Inside our collection.phtml template, we call $this->reloadProducts() and iterate over the product list to display the product details and buy collection popups (these are js lightboxes that activate on click)
<?php
$_productCollection = $this->reloadProducts();
?>
<!-- Buy collection popup -->
<div id="buy-collection" class="no-display">
<h1>Buy Collection</h1>
<?php foreach($_productCollection as $_product): ?>
<div id="buy-collection-product-<?php echo $_product->getId(); ?>" class="product">
<div class="media"><?php echo $this->getChild('media')->setProduct($_product)->toHtml(); ?></div>
<?php /*
<img src="<?php echo $this->helper('catalog/image')->init($_product, 'small_image')->resize(100); ?>" width="100" height="100" alt="<?php echo $this->stripTags($this->getImageLabel($_product, 'small_image'), null, true) ?>" />
*/ ?>
<a href="<?php echo $_product->getProductUrl() ?>" ><?php echo $_product->getName(); ?></a>
<?php if($_product->isSaleable()): ?>
<div class="add-to-cart"><?php echo $this->getChild('add-to-cart')->setProduct($_product)->toHtml(); ?></div>
<?php else: ?>
<div class="out-of-stock"><?php echo $this->__('Out of stock') ?></div>
<?php endif; ?>
<div class="details">
<div class="description">
<?php echo $this->getChild('description')->setProduct($_product)->toHtml(); ?>
</div>
<div class="attributes">
<?php echo $this->getChild('attributes')->setProduct($_product)->toHtml(); ?>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<?php endforeach; ?>
</div>
<!-- Product detail popups -->
<div id="product-details" class="no-display">
<?php foreach ($_productCollection as $_product): ?>
<div id="product-detail-<?php echo $_product->getId(); ?>" class="product">
<div class="media"><?php echo $this->getChild('media')->setProduct($_product)->toHtml(); ?></div>
<div class="description"><?php echo $this->getChild('description')->setProduct($_product)->toHtml(); ?></div>
<div class="attributes"><?php echo $this->getChild('attributes')->setProduct($_product)->toHtml(); ?></div>
</div>
<?php endforeach; ?>
</div>
To actually fire all this off, for any product category that we wish to display as collection we override the category.listing and product_list templates in the Custom Design tab of that category in the admin. These templates contain design changes, and product/list.phtml calls the collection block.
<reference name="product_list">
<action method="setTemplate">
<template>catalog/collections/product/list.phtml</template>
</action>
</reference>
<reference name="category.products">
<action method="setTemplate">
<template>catalog/collections/category/view.phtml</template>
</action>
</reference>
Inside product/list.phtml we call the collection block with a simple echo $this->getChildHtml('collection');. Nothing is returned on this line. No template, no PHP errors, nothing. As mentioned above, this all works beautifully in my local dev environment.
That's the overview of how things are setup. Here's what I have done to debug:
Using Alan Storm's Layoutviewer module, I have confirmed that my blocks are listed on ?showLayout=page, and the handle "catalog_category_view" is listed in ?showLayout=handles. However, when I print $this->getSortedChildren() in product/list.phtml the collection block is not listed.
If I replace the collection block in layout.xml with a super simple core/text block, it does render.
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<layout version="0.1.0">
<catalog_category_view>
<reference name="product_list">
<block type="core/text" name="collection"><action method="setText"><text>This is a test</text></action></block>
</reference>
</catalog_category_view>
</layout>
This led me to believe the problem was deeper in my own code, so I simplified and went totally basic… I removed the reloadProducts method from Mycompany_Collections_Block_Collection and reduced collections.phtml to a single line of text to see if something in the template or child blocks were causing an issue. Unfortunately this had no affect and I still got no output.
I'm really at a loss as to why this is not working. I first thought it may be a difference between the Enterprise and Community editions, but something as fundamental as the layout/block system is unlikely to differ between them. There clearly seems to be something missing, and I'm hoping someone may be able to point in the right direction.
Thanks!

Answer 1

Did you check Mycompany_Collections.xml available in /app/etc/modules section and codepool enabled?
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<config>
<modules>
<Mycompany_Collections>
<active>true</active>
<codePool>local</codePool>
</Mycompany_Collections>
</modules>
</config>