Sudden Payment issues - "(7) couldn't connect to host"

[mysh]

I woke up yesterday morning and realized I didn't have a single order since the night before. Monday is mu busiest day so this seemed odd. I tried to do an order myself on the site and I got the following error when submitting order:

"Communications Error - Please notify webmaster. - Your credit card could not be authorized for this reason. Please correct the information and try again or contact us for further assistance."

I checked the log files and I noticed the top line said:
comm result: 7 couldn't connect to host

I am using zen cart 1.39h and I use eprocessingnetwork as a gateway. I called eprocessingnetwork and they said the charges were not coming to them at all. They saw none of the 30 attempts I had that morning. This seemed right since I got no notice of the attempts as well outside of the debug logs on my site.

I am using the aim module with eprocessingnetwork so I checked to make sure the url is still the same and it was. Just to be safe I grabbed the authorize_aim.php that handles this stuff from a backup and uploaded but still got the same issue.

I haven't made any changes to code and eprocessingnetwork said they have made no changes at all on their side. I have no idea why it would just suddenly stop working after midnight monday night when its worked for 3 years.

I use hostgator as my host and I called them. They said they haven't made any recent changes either. After I researched a bit it seems like this issue is usually host related. I explained to them that it seems something with the server is no longer letting me communicate with epn.

Is my thinking right that something has gone wrong with the server?

I also wanted your opinion on hostgators service. I told them about the problem and a ticket was created 30 hours ago. They still haven't even looked at the issue while my site is down since I can't take payments. Are my expectations of a host company too high or is this really poor service? I would think when a possible issue with their server was causing me to lose 2 days of orders they wouldn't take so long to look into the issue.

[RixStix]

See if this helps.

http://www.zen-cart.com/showthread.p...81#post1262681

[mysh]

thanks for the suggestion but it didn't work. I am happy you showed that link since i would have to do that anyways but epn isn't starting to enforce till October 30th. atleast I got it out of the way

[mc12345678]

Couple of minor things.

One: should subscribe to the thread that the post RixStix sent you to is in. That way you will receive notification of other such important announcements.

Two: would help to also answer the other questions related to the posting guidelines.

Three: try executing extras/curltester.php on your site. I was trying to find the "instructions" that are on this site somewhere, but can't seem to at the moment.

[mysh]

What version of Zen Cart? 1.39h

Is it a new install or an upgrade? installed 3 years ago

What the addons/contributions you have installed? Not many "Check out as guest"

What customizations have you made? not many I used all business template

What type of server are you using? hostgator shared

Are you installing locally? no

What operating system? honestly don't know


What version of PHP is installed on the server?3.5.5

What version of MYSQL is installed on the server?not sure

What you were doing when your problem occurred? sleeping

What are the steps to reproduce the problem? try to submit an order (at which point it should go to gateway for processing but doesn't)

Have you attempted to fix the problem? Yes

[mysh]

Curltester.php results. Seems good to me but I honestly don't know for sure

You submitted the following fields and data:

Array
(
[field1] => This is a test
[statuskey] => ready
)

Data validation
Good
Other Info
Your server IP address is: 50.**.***.141.
Your system identifies itself as: Zen Cart(tm) - CURL TEST

array
(
[url] => "http://www.zen-cart.com/testcurl.php"
[content_type] => text/html
[http_code] => 200
[header_size] => 226
[request_size] => 212
[filetime] => -1
[ssl_verify_result] => 0
[redirect_count] => 0
[total_time] => 0.178769
[namelookup_time] => 0.058778
[connect_time] => 0.116368
[pretransfer_time] => 0.116546
[size_upload] => 37
[size_download] => 2116
[speed_download] => 11836
[speed_upload] => 206
[download_content_length] => 2116
[upload_content_length] => 37
[starttransfer_time] => 0.178629
[redirect_time] => 0
)

[mysh]

i ran the curltester which seemed good.

I just ran a card on my site as a test and it worked. Is it possible the curltest reset something? I don't think hostgator has gotten to my ticket yet so I can't think of anything else I did that could have fixed it

[stevesh]

As you said, most 'sudden' problems are host-related. My guess is that your host found and corrected the problem, but didn't admit it. Thirty hours or more to respond to a support ticket is inexcusable - you need a new host, IMO.

[mysh]

I wanted to update this so I can maybe save someone from dealing with hostgator. I reported this issue last Monday and I just got a reply today. It took a full week to get the ticket looked at.
Here is the reply:
I do not see any major issues on the server over the past week. Our server monitoring team did restart the firewall and apache on the server due to issues with a large amount of connections that did not close properly. We will continue to monitor the server and if the issue arises again then please reply back to this email so that we may investigate it further.

[DrByte]

comm result: 7 couldn't connect to host

I am using zen cart 1.39h and I use eprocessingnetwork as a gateway.

"7 couldn't connect to host" means your own hosting company's server can't reach the destination server. So it's no surprise that eprocessing didn't see the connection attempts.
That's usually a result of a firewall misconfiguration on your hosting company's end.