Most of us would have come across the option to Disable modules output in the Magento back-end under System > Configuration > Advanced.
While the above does what it says (disable output from our extension’s blocks) the extension is still in the system and active. So all module rewrites, controllers, etc are still in place. Turning off an extension is easy, simply find the corresponding xml file under app/etc/modules/ and change active true to false.
Once you refresh your configuration cache or delete the contents of /var/cache the extension is deactivated. Any changes the extension might have made to your database are not affected by this change.
Similarly if you want to re-enable an extension simply change back to active true. Once you have refreshed your Magento configuration cache the extension will show up again.
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Good tip Kristof. However, have you ever tried disabling the Magento Wishlist module this way?
While it appears that the Wishlist is disabled, I encountered an error when trying to view the customer records in the admin back-end. So, I had to re-enable the wishlist module and use the Advanced Settings to just disable the output.
Lesson is, when you disable a module completely, make sure you check both the front and back end site areas for issues.
Bummer, eh…
Hi Robert,
indeed a problem when disabling core modules. In that case you have to double check, as you said, front and back-end. Could be considered a bug of the sales/customer modules too, since Magento relies on the wishlist module being available without explicitly stating the dependency.
[...] Tip: You can turn off an extension completely by changing true to false This works for all extensions. See also this related quick tip. [...]
Hy,, is there any way that we can setup a PHP file that will disable the module by just puting the name of module and run the script,????????
as im facing conflict between 2 modules and always i have to disable one for the other one will display???
Thanks
There are ways to resolve extension conflicts. Just do a google search on “resolving magento extension conflict” you should find some good pointers how to deal with this.