Paypal return - login expired - IE8

[simonbbc]

I am still getting the Paypal Express reports from customers.
They are telling me everyday that they are not able to complete transactions due to timeout.
When I question further I find that Internet Explorer 8 is a major part in this....
It is something that is causing a lot of business to dissapear or get frustrated and this can't be good.
Magento works find once User agent is disbaled....

What can Zen Cart do to solve this problem....???

I will be moving away very soon if this is not solveable, I can'r believe more people aren't on forums making comments about it or atleast trying to find out what is going on.....

please take a look at the site and see for yourself...... www.simonbbc.com/automotiveshop

[KismetDesign]

I was really hoping by now that someone would have an answer for this thread... I'm having the same issue with Google Checkout... and I've noticed that both PayPal and GC people are posting about it, with very few answers. I'm about ready to pay someone to come in and take over with the payment module.

[cliffvt]

Hi All

I need some urgent help from the Zen community please!!

My shop has been running just fine for the last 5 months. I moved to new hosting servers a week ago and everything seemed to be just perfect, except our order volumes fell. I started getting emails from shoppers saying that they are having "Whoops, your session has expired" errors.

Upon investigation, it seems to happen when a shopper is transferred to PayPal, and once they log into their account and press the "Pay Now" button, it immediately jumps back to my shopping cart on the time_out page. (I use Express Checkout)

Here's the other strange thing, when I asked one of my customers having the problem, to try Firefox, it worked without the timeout problem, I also did a purchase myself using Firefox with no problems, so it seems to be an IE issue perhaps?

I changed from filebased caching to database caching as well and this makes no difference.

I then switched on debug, and here are the messages I received whilst a customer was trying to do a purchase (which also came up as session timed out):

First email:

Checking to see if we are in markflow
  cart contents: physical
   
  NOTE: $this->showPaymentPage = 0
  Customer ID: 202
  Session Data: Array
  (
      [securityToken] => d7187b0b905a2f7299e3fbd7f67d57a1
      [customers_host_address] => 91.85.138.80
      [cartID] => 
      [cart] => shoppingCart Object
          (
              [contents] => Array
                  (
                      [1:c67a93707abd36d886c00bda2ad5b9cf] => Array
                          (
                              [qty] => 3
                              [attributes] => Array
                                  (
                                      [1] => 1
                                  )
   
                          )
   
                  )
   
              [total] => 30
              [weight] => 0
              [cartID] => 
              [content_type] => physical
              [free_shipping_item] => 0
              [free_shipping_weight] => 0
              [free_shipping_price] => 0
              [observers] => Array
                  (
                  )
   
          )
   
      [navigation] => navigationHistory Object
          (
              [path] => Array
                  (
                      [0] => Array
                          (
                              [page] => index
                              [mode] => NONSSL
                              [get] => Array
                                  (
                                      [type] => ec
                                  )
   
                              [post] => Array
                                  (
                                  )
   
                          )
   
                  )
   
              [snapshot] => Array
                  (
                  )
   
              [observers] => Array
                  (
                  )
   
          )
   
      [check_valid] => true
      [language] => english
      [languages_id] => 1
      [languages_code] => en
      [currency] => GBP
      [today_is] => 2009-10-14
      [updateExpirations] => 1
      [session_counter] => 1
      [customers_ip_address] => 91.85.138.80
      [customer_id] => 202
      [customer_default_address_id] => 215
      [customers_authorization] => 0
      [customer_first_name] => robert
      [customer_last_name] => barratt
      [customer_country_id] => 222
      [customer_zone_id] => 0
      [valid_to_checkout] => 1
      [cart_errors] => 
      [payment] => paypalwpp
      [cot_gv] => 0
  )

Second email:

cart contents is not all virtual or customer is not logged in ... therefore will be submitting address details

Third email:

not logged in and not in markflow mode - nothing to override

Fourth email:

address details from override check:

Fifth email:

Array
  (
      [AMT] => 30.00
      [RETURNURL] =>
  http://tickets.elmbridgechoir.co.uk/...er.php?type=ec
      [CANCELURL] =>
  http://tickets.elmbridgechoir.co.uk/...ng&ec_cancel=1
      [LOCALECODE] => GB
      [CURRENCY] => GBP
      [PAYMENTACTION] => Sale
      [EMAIL] => [email protected]

      [PHONENUM] => 00003334444
      [SOLUTIONTYPE] => SOLE
  )

Sixth (and last) email:

2009-10-14 12:31:29
  -------------------
  (live transaction) --> https://api-3t.paypal.com/nvp Request Headers: 
  Array
  (
      [0] => Content-Type: text/namevalue
      [1] => X-VPS-Timeout: 45
      [2] => X-VPS-VIT-Client-Type: PHP/cURL
      [3] => X-VPS-VIT-Integration-Product: PHP::Zen Cart - WPP-NVP
      [4] => X-VPS-VIT-Integration-Version: 1.3.8a
  )
   
   
  Request Parameters: {SetExpressCheckout} Array (
      [LOCALECODE] => GB
      [PAYMENTACTION] => Sale
      [EMAIL] => email AT removed DOT com
      [PHONENUM] => 00003334444
      [AMT] => 30.00
      [RETURNURL] =>
  http://tickets.elmbridgechoir.co.uk/...er.php?type=ec
      [CANCELURL] =>
  http://tickets.elmbridgechoir.co.uk/...ng&ec_cancel=1
      [PAGESTYLE] => Primary
      [METHOD] => SetExpressCheckout
      [CURRENCYCODE] => GBP
      [USER] => tickets_api1.elmbridgechoir.co.uk
      [PWD] => ****************
      [VERSION] => 3.2
      [SIGNATURE] => ****************************************************0hGs
  )
   
   
  Response: 
  Array
  (
      [TOKEN] => EC-4X779991GE638332J
      [TIMESTAMP] => 2009-10-14T12:31:32Z
      [CORRELATIONID] => 5a896b05d8cb7
      [ACK] => Success
      [VERSION] => 3.2
      [BUILD] => 1077585
      [CURL_ERRORS] => 
  )

At this point it times out from PayPal and I receive no further debug emails.

I have tried everything, including changing the config.php to different settings. Here is my config.php as it stands now:

<?php
/**
 * @package Configuration Settings circa 1.3.8
 * @copyright Copyright 2003-2007 Zen Cart Development Team
 * @copyright Portions Copyright 2003 osCommerce
 * @license http://www.zen-cart.com/license/2_0.txt GNU Public License V2.0
 */


/*************** NOTE: This file is similar, but DIFFERENT from the "admin" version of configure.php. ***********/
/***************       The 2 files should be kept separate and not used to overwrite each other.      ***********/

// Define the webserver and path parameters
  // HTTP_SERVER is your Main webserver: eg-http://www.your_domain.com
  // HTTPS_SERVER is your Secure webserver: eg-https://www.your_domain.com
  define('HTTP_SERVER', 'http://tickets.elmbridgechoir.co.uk');
  define('HTTPS_SERVER', '');

  // Use secure webserver for checkout procedure?
  define('ENABLE_SSL', 'false');

// NOTE: be sure to leave the trailing '/' at the end of these lines if you make changes!
// * DIR_WS_* = Webserver directories (virtual/URL)
  // these paths are relative to top of your webspace ... (ie: under the public_html or httpdocs folder)
  define('DIR_WS_CATALOG', '/zencart/');
  define('DIR_WS_HTTPS_CATALOG', '/zencart/');

  define('DIR_WS_IMAGES', 'images/');
  define('DIR_WS_INCLUDES', 'includes/');
  define('DIR_WS_FUNCTIONS', DIR_WS_INCLUDES . 'functions/');
  define('DIR_WS_CLASSES', DIR_WS_INCLUDES . 'classes/');
  define('DIR_WS_MODULES', DIR_WS_INCLUDES . 'modules/');
  define('DIR_WS_LANGUAGES', DIR_WS_INCLUDES . 'languages/');
  define('DIR_WS_DOWNLOAD_PUBLIC', DIR_WS_CATALOG . 'pub/');
  define('DIR_WS_TEMPLATES', DIR_WS_INCLUDES . 'templates/');

  define('DIR_WS_PHPBB', '/');

// * DIR_FS_* = Filesystem directories (local/physical)
  //the following path is a COMPLETE path to your Zen Cart files. eg: /var/www/vhost/accountname/public_html/store/
  define('DIR_FS_CATALOG', '/home/cliffvt/tickets/zencart/');

  define('DIR_FS_DOWNLOAD', '/home/cliffvt/secure/downloads/');
  define('DIR_FS_DOWNLOAD_PUBLIC', DIR_FS_CATALOG . 'pub/');
  define('DIR_WS_UPLOADS', DIR_WS_IMAGES . 'uploads/');
  define('DIR_FS_UPLOADS', DIR_FS_CATALOG . DIR_WS_UPLOADS);
  define('DIR_FS_EMAIL_TEMPLATES', DIR_FS_CATALOG . 'email/');

// define our database connection
  define('DB_TYPE', 'mysql');
  define('DB_PREFIX', 'zen_');
  define('DB_SERVER', 'localhost');
  define('DB_SERVER_USERNAME', 'removed');
  define('DB_SERVER_PASSWORD', 'removed');
  define('DB_DATABASE', 'removed');
  define('USE_PCONNECT', 'false');
  define('STORE_SESSIONS', 'db');
  // for STORE_SESSIONS, use 'db' for best support, or '' for file-based storage

  // The next 2 "defines" are for SQL cache support.
  // For SQL_CACHE_METHOD, you can select from:  none, database, or file
  // If you choose "file", then you need to set the DIR_FS_SQL_CACHE to a directory where your apache 
  // or webserver user has write privileges (chmod 666 or 777). We recommend using the "cache" folder inside the Zen Cart folder
  // ie: /path/to/your/webspace/public_html/zen/cache   -- leave no trailing slash
  define('SQL_CACHE_METHOD', 'database'); 
  define('DIR_FS_SQL_CACHE', '/home/cliffvt/tickets/zencart/cache');

// EOF

Any ideas anyone? We're losing buisiness at the moment so it's painful.

I spoke to my hosting company and they have tried everything as well to help me but still no result.

Here are my php settings:

Apache version    2.2.13 (Unix)
PHP version    5.2.9
MySQL version    5.0.81-community
Architecture    i686
Operating system    Linux
Shared Ip Address    removed
Path to sendmail    /usr/sbin/sendmail
Path to PERL    /usr/bin/perl
Kernel version    2.6.18-128.7.1.el
5PAE

Kind regards


Cliff

[cliffvt]

Hi there - I am having the same problem and it is serious. Someone here at Zen with knowledge of coding has to fix this urgently - we are losing so much business through this - only just discovered it after our booking volumes started falling..

Please Zenners - can you work on this urgently??

Firefox works fine...

Thanks

Cliff

[serge111]

have u tried contacting paypal about this ...

[serge111]

also u mite wanna get urself a merchant account so that u dont have to depend on paypal for 100% of your payments, apart from that i am not really sure the issue seems complicated ...

[Merlinpa1969]

Have you tried to uninstall and then re-install the payment mods ( also do this to shipping mods ) through the ZC admin, this will set the new server configuration paths in the DB

[Joe Politzer]

Did you ever figure this out? I am plauged with the same problem now. The worst is everytime I do a test checkout/transaction it works fine, just not for any of the customers.

[Joe Politzer]

Has anyone figured a workaround to this problem yet? It is affecting us now too.

[Joe Politzer]

I think I may have fixed it, although I do not have IE8 on any of my computers to be able to test it. Could somebody with IE8 try this fix on their zen cart and let me know if it works?

Ok, now the fix:

After researching this for hours I believe the problem is as others have suggested, just an IE8 problem. It has to do with the way that IE8 manages Sessions.

So the trick is that in IE8 there is a button in the web browser that the user can click to force IE8 into IE7 compatability mode for a particular website (your zen cart store). Of course this is ridiculous to expect your customers to be smart enough to do this everytime they come to your site from IE8, so I figured there had to be a way to have the zencart store force IE8 into IE7 Compatability mode. I have found that if you put the following meta tag into the header of all of the pages on your store then IE8 will be forced to operate in IE7 compatability mode for every page in your store (Horray I hope this works).

The Meta Tag:

<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE7" />

So then the next problem is how do we put this meta tag in every page of our store? Some quick research found that all you have to do is copy and paste the meta tag into the appropriate spot (along with all the other meta tags) found in the file: html_header.php, which is found at this location:

includes/templates/template_default/common/html_header.php

Also, if you have a theme installed that overrides this file then you should instead do it in:

includes/templates/your_theme_directory/common/html_header.php (if the file exists there). You can also copy the html_header.php fom the default template to here before making your edit.

To cite my sources here is where I came up with this stuff from:

The Meta Tag came from:
http://www.ditii.com/2008/08/28/ie8-...tibility-mode/

And the way to add the meta tag into zen cart came from:
https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=62