USPS Not Working Intermittently / Returning Error

[sctrojnvirus]

Hi, I have been a Zencart user for several years, and I primarily have a developer do work on the site as I am not overly technically savvy. But we have been having an issue with the USPS module for about a month and my developer cannot locate the issue, he believes it has to do with USPS. I wanted to ask here if anyone else is having the same thing, or if we have it setup wrong.

Here is a link to our website: http://bit.ly/1yMhUGH

Intermittently at checkout, the USPS module is does not return quotes, and instead gives the error: "An error occurred in obtaining USPS shipping quotes.
If you prefer to use USPS as your shipping method, please try refreshing this page, or contact the store owner."

When this happens, the page takes a long time to load, maybe 15 seconds, before showing this error.

Similarly, when using the Shipping Estimator, the page will take 15 seconds to load before not bringing in any USPS prices. In this case, it won't give an error, it just won't load anything from USPS.

We have heard reports from customers all over the USPS and world that they are getting this error. But not all the time, it's unpredictable. It does it sometimes for me, and sometimes not.

Below are the settings we are using. Is there anything that stands out as an issue or is there something else we need to look at?

Thanks a million in advance.

[Ajeh]

It is difficult to read that image, as in next to impossible ...

If you could go to your Zen Cart admin to the Modules ... Shipping ... and edit USPS then down near the bottom set Debug Log on, then try some quotes ...

Now, Zip the shipping logs in the /logs directory and attach it on your next post, this would be easier to see ...

If you could get a failed USPS quote in among the logs, it would be helpful ...

[sctrojnvirus]

Looks like it thumbnailed it. Here is a link to a readable version :)
http://i.imgur.com/hCfmlOO.jpg

Let me try to replicate it...

[sctrojnvirus]

Everything is quoting properly and quickly right now. That's why this is such a tough error to nail down.
I will try several times over the course of the day and will post the logs if I can get it to error.
In the meantime, do you see anything in the settings that could be the issue?

[Ajeh]

Of course it won't fail now when you want it to ...

Most of the time, from the symptoms described ... this is a bad hair day on the USPS servers that are causing this and there isn't a lot you can do about it ...

I will try to remember this next time I see the doggie USPS days and see if I can't make a handy dandy message in the Shipping Estimator/Checkout Shipping to get this so say something such as: Try Again! USPS is slow today!

[sctrojnvirus]

Well, if it were a rare occurrence I would believe that, but we've been having it quite a lot. To the point that I had to disable the module. And that's why I was surprised to not find a bunch of other threads saying the same thing, which led me to believe it was an issue on our part. I'll keep trying...

[badarac]

I had a client email me with basically the same problem today. Either it returns a rate or it just never seems to return anything. This was with the advanced shipper mod though. Turning debug on only returned something when it returned rates. I don't have access to the server on this account so I don't know if it's been writing any debug logs. I tried to recreate the problem on a local WAMP install and never did get it to fail. That tells me that there is either something with the ZC install, server config, or just dumb luck when I tested it locally.

[Ajeh]

Well ... seriously the last month or two there have been a lot more issues with USPS and their server having issues ...

Sometimes the USPS server is not there and other times the USPS server drops the connection after the initial request for a quote is made ...

If you leave the logs on for the next few days and can catch some good and bad quotes, maybe it will help in talking to USPS about this issue with their server ...

I have reported it in the past to USPS, but so far, not a lot of action has been taken on this. But, I will try to complain about this more to USPS when I see it happening again ...

[RodG]

In the meantime, do you see anything in the settings that could be the issue?

As a general rule, if it works sometimes but not others it is pretty safe to assume that it isn't related to settings.

Although Ajeh has suggested that the usps servers have been have some 'bad hair' days, it is also possible that it is your own server that is having similar bad hair days. In fact it could be a combination of both.

Cheers
RodG