Disappearing Download Attributes

[ToniScraparoni]

Hello!

My store carries virtual products. Every so often, Zen gets hungry and eats our download attributes. Meaning, they literally disappear. One minute products will have a green dot, the file name is there; the next it's completely empty (no file name, no red or green dot), though the file is still on the server.

This is a rather large problem for me. I have more than 20 manufacturers and 3,000+ products in inventory. It's a burden to ask everyone to drop everything and reset their downloads every time, let alone do it all myself. Restoring a prior database backup doesn't always work because it's hard to pinpoint when exactly it happens. I usually receive my first clue when a customer writes in to say they can't download their product. By that time, a newer database copy has often overwritten the last 'whole" one.

I've come across various posts on this topic. Some of the posts are even from other stores in the same line of work, with a similar setup to mine. We subdivide the download folder in order for each manufacturer to have their own "private" FTP directory. A normal file path would look like something this:

toni/ProductABC.zip

I've tried to analyze the pattern, but there doesn't seem to be one. The missing category of choice seems to be random, usually a product category that all manufacturers can copy to. It's never usually the same category twice. Though some have made repeat performances. ;)

On the flip side, I've also noticed extra, empty download attributes are sometimes added to random products. A product will have six file attributes, for example, then there will be three more "empty" ones below, with green dots, but no file name.

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated! It's driving us absolutely crazy! And, with a very large inventory that grows on a daily basis, not a problem I want to keep dealing with. Can you spell "m-u-t-i-n-y?" LOL!

Thank you again! :)

[Ajeh]

Are you using the Copy Products or Copy Attributes features?

Or something like Copy Attributes to another Product or a Category of Products?

[ToniScraparoni]

Hi, Linda!

Thanks for your post!

We rarely do a "straight copy." If we do, then it's a linked product, not duplicated. 99% of the time, we use the MCLM, where we don't have that option.

Does that assist the assistance? LOL! Happy to provide anything you may need! I've just upgraded to 1.3.9e from 1.3.9d. I've done them all faithfully. Also modded to the hilt if that helps to know.

Thank you again for your help with this!

[Ajeh]

So far, the only times that I have been able to find the disappearing Downloads has related to copying Attributes from one Product to another or to a Category of Products where the Attributes overwrite the exiting Attributes and the Download is lost as the Download files are not copied in this manner ...

I have not pinpointed any other cause, at this time ...

Perhaps keeping current backups and checking the products_attributes_download count of records can help pinpoint when this happens based on a sudden change in the number of records in that table ...

One idea is if the Downloads remain the same for the Products but new ones get added, a backup of the products_attributes table and the products_attributes_download table can restore the attributes/downloads or help identify the lost ones ...

So far, I have not been able to reproduce anything like this ...

Do you have any add ons for the attributes?

[ToniScraparoni]

No, we don't use any attribute add-ons. We don't add additional downloads to existing products, either. Products are loaded once, downloads set, then they're copied to the additional categories where they need to go, either through "Linked Product" or the MCLM.


I'm not sure how I'm supposed to "watch" the table you've referenced. That table currently has over 5,300 records. Some are probably for extra "empty" downloads, and some are probably missing. So I would have to fix over 3,300 products to ascertain what the "true" number should be, then take a daily count from all the new products added to inventory, check those downloads and keep a running total, at the same time running several backups and trying to figure out when the problem happens?

When would I have time for anything else? I appreciate the suggestion, but it's a bit impractical for the size of my store. There's obviously a big problem here. This happens too many times to be random. Not only to me, but to many others, as evidenced by the the threads I've found relating to it.

Happy to provide my tables, screen shots, and/or anything else you might need to duplicate the issue and see it for yourself. This issue very much exists, and it's going to become a deal-breaker on continuing to use Zen cart. I simply can't keep going through this every few weeks with the amount of inventory we have.

[Ajeh]

You could run, in phpMyAdmin, the following SQL to find any missing download filenames in the products_attributes_download table:

SELECT * FROM products_attributes_download where products_attributes_filename = '';

This will find all records that do not have a download name set ...

Do ALL of your Attributes have downloads on them?

[ToniScraparoni]

I will try that code and see what happens. LOL! Thank you!

All of our attributes are radio-button downloads, except one, which is value, specifically related to gift certificates.

[ToniScraparoni]

SELECT * FROM zen_products_attributes_download where products_attributes_filename = '';

Ran that, received this:

MySQL returned an empty result set (i.e. zero rows). ( Query took 0.0001 sec )

Yet, here's this and this:

[Ajeh]

That makes it appear that the downloads are not missing from the products_attributes_download record, but rather the record itself is missing that should be associated with the Attribute ...

[ToniScraparoni]

That makes it appear that the downloads are not missing from the products_attributes_download record, but rather the record itself is missing that should be associated with the Attribute ...

I'm so sorry, but I have no idea what that means. Unless it's what I've been trying to tell you? Downloads mysteriously go missing?

We also have the problem of empty attributes being added. Not sure if this is one problem or two problems, or what I'm supposed to do next.

Please advise. Thank you! :)