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[Vger]

This also happens when I visit c u c u m b e r m e d i a . c o m and try to purchase the manual

I was replying to your post. Very few people are having this problem, and so I am convinced it is down to local settings on their PCs. Especially as it is also Browser related.

Vger

[Audrea]

Thanks for your quick reply Vger. I located the listing of spiders that zencart references (in the "includes" folder - called spiders.txt). I eliminated each one of the spiders individually from the list and found the one causing the problem. If I remove "search" from the listing, the customer can log in. I understand that spiders identify themselves to the server using the User_agent field of the HTTP request. Any thoughts as to why would my browser be using "search" in the User_agent field? How safe is my site if I don't specify this as a spider?

[Vger]

Well the only "search" spider in the default Zen Cart spiders.txt file is actually named "seosearch", and as it begins with "seo" that shouldn't cause any problems. Unless you have added spiders yourself?

You do sometimes get problems with the names of spiders listed in that file conflicting with programmes. For instance there was a spider called "java" and if you had this spider in that file then it disabled a payment module for HSBC Bank.

Vger

[Audrea]

Thanks so much Vger. The spider "search" is the fifth one listed - it is a bit hidden at the top of the list with a few that are not sorted alphabetically. I think I have figured out a solution to my problem. I went to www.my-addr.com and looked at the user-agent information for each of my browsers. The only 2 browsers this happened with were IE8 and Firefox. I noticed that they both had entries in the user-agent field that contained the word "search". Did a little research online about the "MindQuizSearchToolbar 1.1" and found that it is a non-malicious adware toolbar put out by Zugo, ltd. that attaches itself to a browser. I was unable to remove it in IE using Tools>Manage Add-ons>Toolbars and Extensions (be sure Show>All Add-Ons is selected) because the option to delete it was grayed out (funny!). I was able to remove it in the Windows Control Panel>Programs and Features area though. It was simply called "Search Toolbar" there. Once removed, I rechecked the IE8 User-Agent info at www.my-addr.com and the string "MindQuizSearch Toolbar 1.1" was gone. Now the customer can login to my store with the default list of spiders and Prevent Spider Sessions = True. This process did not fix the issue with Firefox however. It looks like it's user-agent string "MindQuizSearchToolbar/1.2" refers to a toolbar add-on called "Torrent Finder Toolbar" but as of yet I haven't been able to find it on my system to remove it. I will post my steps when I get it figured out.

IE 8.0:
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.0; WOW64; Trident/4.0; MindQuizSearchToolbar 1.1; GTB6.6; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; Media Center PC 5.0; .NET CLR 3.5.21022; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; InfoPath.2; .NET4.0C)

IE 8.0 after Search Toolbar removal:
Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.0; WOW64; Trident/4.0; GTB6.6; SLCC1; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; Media Center PC 5.0; .NET CLR 3.5.21022; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; InfoPath.2; .NET4.0C)

Firefox 3.6:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20101203 Firefox/3.6.13 ( .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET4.0C) MindQuizSearchToolbar/1.2

Firefox 3.6 after Search Toolbar removal (no change, still working on it!):
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20101203 Firefox/3.6.13 ( .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET4.0C) MindQuizSearchToolbar/1.2

Safari 5.0:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US) AppleWebKit/533.19.4 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.3 Safari/533.19.4

Google Chrome 8.0:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US) AppleWebKit/534.10 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/8.0.552.237 Safari/534.10

Opera 9.80:
Opera/9.80 (Windows NT 6.0; U; en) Presto/2.7.62 Version/11.00

[Vger]

I was searching alphabetically, but I see it now.

You should, if you can find it, remove the Torrent Finder Toolbar. Torrent sites are most often used for illegal downloads and also (intentionally or not) home to viruses. For that reason I never use them and never connect to them (so see no reason to have a Toolbar which helps you to find them).

Vger

[edadk]

If I remove "search" from the listing, the customer can log in.

I can confirm that this has solved the problem on my site also.

Customers who previously could not log in or add anything to the cart can now shop on the site normally.

Before now, customers with the word "search" anywhere in their user agent string were listed as spiders and could not shop. Now they are shown as humans and all is well.

I don't know if it's proper for these toolbars to insert their info into the user agent text, but since they are, it's making problems for customers who use those toolbars. Removing the single word -search- from the spiders.txt file solved the problem.

I've watched the site for incorrect assignments since then and people and bots are both being identified correctly.

Thanks for the solution, Audrea.

Ed

[disciple]

I, too, will confirm that this solution has solved my issue as well.

Thanks

Rick

[gotlogos]

It makes sense that Chrome would fly through as Chrome for the most part doesn't use toolbars. My store was getting plenty of customer complaints about prevented checkout because of the cookie issues so I too have removed the word 'search' from the includes/spiders.txt file.

Hopefully this will solve the issue.

Thanks all...

[ksoup]

Does anyone know if this will have a bad effect on anything?

I can confirm that this has solved the problem on my site also.

Customers who previously could not log in or add anything to the cart can now shop on the site normally.

Before now, customers with the word "search" anywhere in their user agent string were listed as spiders and could not shop. Now they are shown as humans and all is well.

I don't know if it's proper for these toolbars to insert their info into the user agent text, but since they are, it's making problems for customers who use those toolbars. Removing the single word -search- from the spiders.txt file solved the problem.

I've watched the site for incorrect assignments since then and people and bots are both being identified correctly.

Thanks for the solution, Audrea.

Ed

[ted]

I have been checking my logs and whos online ever since removing the "search" and haven't seen anything strange. Customers have been able to place orders and only one contacted me about ordering being frustrating...when I emailed her right back she said it was because she forgot her password.

When Dr Byte pointed out about the Torrent thing it made me think about that yes we could remove it and be fine but if it was keeping the customers from logging in we can't control what they do away from our site. In my case it wasn't the Torrent thing but I was on a new computer with Windows 7 with no add ons and it was doing the same thing but only when I enabled my SSL pages. When I removed the "search" there were no more problems with login either admin or the website.