Additional features for working with linked tables have been deactivated – phpMyAdmin

phpMyAdmin is a free tool intended to handle the administration of MySQL using the web. There are several good reference materials available, in case you want to learn more about phpMyAdmin and what it can do. Installing phpMyAdmin, as described in this post, is one of the first things I do after installing a LAMP server.

Sometimes, after installing phpMyAdmin, it displays the following error: "The additional features for working with linked tables have been deactivated. To find out why click here". Upon clicking "To find out why click here" the following is displayed:

In this post, I will describe how to fix "Additional features for working with linked tables have been deactivated" in phpMyAdmin on Ubuntu systems. This should work on other Linux distributions as well.

How to fix "Additional features for working with linked tables have been deactivated" Error

Small change needs to be done. Edit the following file:

sudo nano -w /etc/phpmyadmin/config.inc.php

Add the third line: "$cfg['Servers'][$i]['tracking'] = 'pma_tracking';".

...
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['history'] = 'pma_history';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['designer_coords'] = 'pma_designer_coords';
$cfg['Servers'][$i]['tracking'] = 'pma_tracking';
...

Recommended Guides for MySQL and phpMyAdmin:

• Learning MySQL and MariaDB
• Essential phpMyAdmin for Effective MySQL Management

Save the file and exit. You might have to clear your browser's cookies/cache for the change to appear. Thats it, "Additional features for working with linked tables have been deactivated" error should now be gone.