New shop intermittently throwing up " Whoops your session has expired" on all actions

Hi, Many years ago I had a Zen Cart website as an online brochure, and last month this was wiped out completely and I started afresh with a new 1.5.1 Zen Cart download that I've set up as a proper trading shop. It seemed to be working fine, and during testing I signed up as an outside customer and successfully purchased an item through Paypal. I then started some Google Adword advertising to attract real cusomers and noticed that the hit counter was rising, but no sales being made - possibly I thought because it was new / our pricing / or just not enough hits to get sales yet.

But I just visited the site for a general click around this morning and discovered that whenever I clicked on any action (such as put something in the cart, try and send a message from Contactus etc.) that it crashed with "Whoops! your session has expired ...". I rebooted, tried again from a fresh start, and still an instant crash on any action.

I searched through the forum and noticed this can be tied to cookies, where I have installed an add-on from civic / design75 (the top rated one on the modules forum), so I tried turning this off, and also removing the sessions directory (another tip I found), but the fault persisted. I then had a coffee, and came back to find the site was working again all by itself, so I reinstated the cookie control and it still works.

So I now have a huge doubt over the reliability of the shop - because obviously customers can't buy anything if they get instantly timed out - and I don't know how often or under what circumstances the fault arises.

Any ideas gratefully received!

Do you have a link to your site? I am almost certain it has nothing to do wit collie control, beacause it doesn't control the ZC id cookies, but the ones from google etc.

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Originally Posted by Design75

Do you have a link to your site? I am almost certain it has nothing to do wit collie control, beacause it doesn't control the ZC id cookies, but the ones from google etc.

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I may have discovered what's happening:

When I visit the shop via the Admin link (online catalog), or by its full address in a browser (http://www.tasklinedatalog.co.uk/shop2/index.php), it works OK, but when I visit it as a customer would via our main domain name (www.taskline.co.uk), it doesn't work, even though the redirection of the domain name is to the same full address.

Does that make sense?

the problem could be related to the fact that your site runs inside a frameset

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Originally Posted by Design75

the problem could be related to the fact that your site runs inside a frameset

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Ummm, that's not something I've knowingly done, but then there's a lot I don't know about web stuff! How would I change it to not be inside a frameset?

Doing more tests, I've found that if I attempt to Log In when connected as a customer would (ie. using taskline.co.uk), an invented username is correctly rejected with the red error message, but a valid username/password just goes back to the Home Page but still says Log In at the top. This seemed like a session problem, so I looked over the forum and ended up checking the cache folder settings. Mine were 755, but it seemed that 777 was recommended, so I changed to 777, but this made no difference to the signing in problem. I mention that in case it throws any more light on the issue.

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even though the redirection of the domain name is to the same full address

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If you are not using the base domain space why are you keeping ZenCart in a folder "/shop2"??

Move it to the root of your space

You are also running in an iframe

Kobra, I didn't realise being in a folder was significant ... I just organised my webspace the same as my hard disc, everything in its own sub-directory. Are you saying that if I move Zen Cart up a level, that the problem of visitors not being able to Log In and use the site will go away? Even though its a different domain name to the one they come in by?

I'm confused by your information that I'm running an iframe!

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Even though its a different domain name to the one they come in by?

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Do not understand what you are stating here??

For the "Woops" message - scroll down and view the similar threads

Kobra, I've looked through all the threads about "Whoops", but none are relevant. In fact, as now discovered, the Whoops message was only a sympton, and the real issue seems to be that I have two domain names - a main one (taskline.co.uk) that customers know us by, and a second one (tasklinedatalog.co.uk) that we have set the shop up under. The first domain has webforwarding to the second one and links through fine. The problem is that when customers arrive at the shop via the webforwarding, the Zen Cart doesn't work properly. Users cannot Log In, and most actions (such as putting an item in the cart) result in the Whoops message. If I go to the shop directly (using tasklinedatalog.co.uk), it works fine.

I'm a novice user of the forum ... so should I start a new thread about webforwarding problems?

Thanks.

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I have two domain names - a main one (taskline.co.uk) that customers know us by, and a second one (tasklinedatalog.co.uk) that we have set the shop up under.

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Why have it setup under another domain name??

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The first domain has webforwarding to the second one and links through fine

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What/how have you initiated this forwarding??

The first domain is historic and was supplied and hosted by a domain name provider who do not offer SQL, PHP etc. The second domain was for a separate project that req'd SQL, so it was purchased from a different hosting company that included those services. The two were combined some years ago by simple forwarding from one to the other, and has worked fine until now. Our present situation is that the first domain name is preferred and dominent, but the second domain has the SQL ability so was used to set up the Zen Cart. It was never foreseen that forwarding would become a problem.

The forwarding of the first domain to the second is handled by a simple box on the control panel of its ISP, where the address of the target is filled in.

Move the primary domain to be hosted where you can run sql -php and ZenCart

I had feared that would be the suggestion! Because to move domains involves quite a lot of time, effort and cost, together with a considerable amount of downtime for the site - so I was hoping there would be some other workaround.

Interestingly, our first ZenCart (1.3) of many years ago (as mentioned in the opening question) worked OK with the same web forwarding, so presumably its been changes within ZenCart that stops it working now?

Also, earlier comments in this thread mentioned framesets as being a problem, and I've just discovered that the ISP looking after our primary domain has an option on the forwarding to use frames or not. So I've just changed that from using frames to not using frames ... so I'll soon see whether that makes any difference.

Update: switching to "no frames" on the forwarding seems to have worked! I will let it settle and do more tests, but on the face of it the problem is cured. Many thanks for everyone's help, and Happy Christmas too!

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Because to move domains involves quite a lot of time, effort and cost,

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Should only take about 4 hours