How to set up country zones for flat rate shipping?

[Ajeh]

If you cannot get the module to work without the Zone setting then it sounds like a problem with the module ...

What is the name of the new cloned shipping module?

Do you see any debug errors in the /cache directory?

[Alho1]

It looks as though underscores in cloned shipping module names may cause problems:
http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=96668
so I removed the underscores in the clones I had created.

However, there is still a problem with the Zone settings. If I put a specific Zone in the payment requirements, and '--none--' in the Shipping settings, there is a mismatch, which brings up: 'Sorry, we are not accepting payments from your area'. If I put the one specific Zone in Payments and Shipping, the new shipping methods do not appear.

Therefore, the only solution is to put both Payments and Shipping to '--none--'. If this is done, the methods appear, and the customer can check out; however, the Zone must be used, to pick up the tax rates ... .

Any ideas what the problem might be?



al

[Ajeh]

Check the Zone Definition that you created to see what the DETAILS are for the:
Country:
Zone:

and make sure that they are correct ...

[Alho1]

Hello Ajeh

Thank you again for the reply.

There is only one Zone set up at the moment. If I click on 'Details', there is one country listed (United Kingdom) , and the Zone column displays 'All Zones'.

If I choose 'Edit' at that point, I can access the list of countries from the drop-down box, but the 'Zone' drop-down box has only one option 'All Zones'.

Does that sound right?

al

[Ajeh]

If a Country does not have a break down on individual locations, such as selecting the United States would show you the All Zones in addition to all the States, Territories, Islands and Armed Forces ... you will only see the All Zones ...

Are you using any kind of Add On for your checkout?

[Alho1]

Hi Ajeh

There don't seems to be any messages in the /cache which coincide with these events. There are no "Add Ons" other than the Paypal module - the cart is just Zen Cart with some customisation.

I have been experimenting with one user set up for the purpose, but when I set up a new user, the cart seems to behave differently. Both users have United Kingdom as the country, but the new user seems to be recogised as part of the Zone. If I go back to the original user, at first the cloned shipping options are not displayed, but if I choose 'Change Address', and then retain the original address, the cloned methods become available, but then the interface reports that shipping is not available for that area ... .

This test user was created prior to upgrading the cart from 1-3-8 to 1-3-9, but I don't see why it should behave differently. The country is the same for both users.



al

[Ajeh]

On the broken user ... what happens if you go to the My Account and edit all of the addresses to make sure everything is correct?

[Alho1]

Hello Ajeh

The broken user has 3 addresses in the Address Book now, because I have added new ones for test purposes. However, the original address display 'United Kingdom' in the country drop-down box, exactly as a working account does. However, when the broken account is used, the cart reports that shipping to that address is not available.

Isn't the country code the only criterion which can be used in this sort of setup, to determine if an address falls within a given Zone? There are no regional definitions made other than the country itself. There is one Zone, with one country in it, that's all.


al

[Ajeh]

As a test, switch to the Classic Template and test your shipping ... does it work?

It sounds like something is out of date in the code if the shipping is not showing unless you edit and maintain the shipping address ...

[Alho1]

The behaviour is the same with the Classic template loaded. Whenever I create a new user, the cart proceeds through the checkout without difficulties (it recognises the Zone it's in, and applies the appropriate tax). The issue arises with the original test account.

I think the problem is related to no address being set as default in the test account. When this happens, the country defaults to 'Aaland Islands' (first alphabetically). I became aware of this by looking under 'Customers' in Admin. However, from the user interface point of view, this is not immediately clear, since if I go to 'My Account', and then select 'Address Book', it is not obvious that a default address is missing. The page displays:
'Primary Address
This address is used as the pre-selected shipping ....
This address is also used .... '
Below this appear the Address Book Entries. A user looking at this could be forgiven for thinking that the top entry in that list is the default address, rather than the default address being missing. When the default address is not there, the cart perhaps assigns 'Aaland Islands' to the country, even though this is not apparent to the user. The funny thing is that even when an address is selected from the Address Book (with United Kingdom as the country), it still rejects the location ( - is there some underlying code that continues to select the underlying default address country?). In most cases, the default country is likely to be the same as any alternative set in the Address Book, but where the default address does not exist it will probably be different (unless the desired country is 'Aaland Islands').

As to why the default address did not exist to start with, I think this might be related to a problem exporting the address from the database and then re-importing it.



al