We upgraded a few client Joomla sites to version 1.5.32 and the Main Menu entries disappeared from the admin area.  We looked through a bunch of web posts that detailed different ways of solving the problem.  Some recommended replacing the list.php page buried deep in the site with an older version.  Others recommended changing the entries in the menu and menu types database tables.

Here’s how we fixed it:

The menu and menu types database tables are linked through the Main Menu module.  The code in version 1.5.32 seems to automatically add a hyphen (-) for any menu type names that have a space.  Our main menu was called “Main Menu” and in the top of the Main Menu we could see it named “Menu-Name” before we made any changes.

In the database we opened the menu_types table (ours was named  jos_menu_types) and updated the menutype column for the main menu from “Main Menu” to Main-Menu”.

We opened the Main Menu module … Extensions->Module Manager then selected the module to show the module settings.  In the Module Parameters section we picked the Menu Name ”Main-Menu.”

In the database we opened the menu table (ours was named jos_menu) and replaced all values for “Menu Type” in the menutype column with “Menu-Type”.

Voila!  Now the Main Menu appears correctly on the live site and the menu items are listed in the admin area.