Quote Originally Posted by conor View Post
Hi Bryan,

How are you?

Sorry to hear about the troubles you had, I always hate to hear of people spending lots of time fixing computer problems. It's very disappointing how bad computing is today compared to what it should be like, but that's a whole different topic.. :)

I'm posting in this thread because I want to talk about what the thread was about, it's a pity it was hijacked (I'm not going to comment in detail on the arguments being had about human-readable URIs, all I can say is that they have no negative connotations, people having problems installing modules is not a valid argument against a technology, yet it's the most quoted reason for not using them.. a bit ignorant I think!).



Actually, this is wrong. Again, I'm sorry you had the trouble you had, but I can tell from what you said that it is actually your RewriteRules in your .htaccess file that were the problem. I'm pretty certain you've some rule that redirects that uses a . in it... if you redirect during a post Zen Cart receives no data and the product is not added to the cart.

Your solution sidesteps your actual issue but isn't the "right" solution. Fixing the rewrite rules in the .htaccess file is what is required.



It's very good of you to provide this information.. I wish more people would post information about how they solved problems. At the very least I can then see if it's not quite the right solution to the "issue", but that helps everyone all round. :)

The latest version of the module has no known issues and should install fine on any Zen Cart site, with no known compatibility issues.. but lots of people have custom server environments which they don't realise might interfere with static URIs.. the problems people have are almost exclusively to do with these other settings, not the actual URI mapping software itself, it's a pity that some people aren't recognising that fact and mistakenly correlating problems people are having with static URIs with some silly innate reason not to use URI mapping software. Hopefully this will be somewhat enlightening!

All the best..

Conor
ceon
LOL I will be staying out of the above discussion on SEO from here on out... I'm sure these guys know a lot more about it than me.

In response to your reply, thank you VERY much for your informative post!! I do in fact have some rewrite rules in my htaccess that are as you described. However, here is some additional information that I did not include in my first post because I was just offering up a possible solution that could be searched and never expected this topic to be replied to....

I have a very intricate website with Joomla 2.5 as my base. I integrated Zen Cart into it via a Joomla Extension called "SolidCart". The purpose of the integration was to share the database and to have a "seamless" website between the information side and the store side. Therefore, my htaccess is rewriting for Joomla as well as ZenCart.

Do you have any suggestions for removing the . rewrite rules, while still maintaining the SEF/SEO functions of both Joomla and ZenCart? I can definitely live with my current configuration, as it all works properly now with all SEF/SEO/URI enabled, but I do agree that I have this underlying issue. Here is my htaccess code:

addhandler x-httpd-php5-3 .php5

Code:
##
# @package		Joomla
# @copyright	Copyright (C) 2005 - 2012 Open Source Matters. All rights reserved.
# @license		GNU General Public License version 2 or later; see LICENSE.txt
##
##
# READ THIS COMPLETELY IF YOU CHOOSE TO USE THIS FILE!
#
# The line just below this section: 'Options +FollowSymLinks' may cause problems
# with some server configurations.  It is required for use of mod_rewrite, but may already
# be set by your server administrator in a way that dissallows changing it in
# your .htaccess file.  If using it causes your server to error out, comment it out (add # to
# beginning of line), reload your site in your browser and test your sef url's.  If they work,
# it has been set by your server administrator and you do not need it set here.
##
## Can be commented out if causes errors, see notes above.
Options +FollowSymLinks
Options -MultiViews
## Mod_rewrite in use.
RewriteEngine On
## Begin - Rewrite rules to block out some common exploits.
# If you experience problems on your site block out the operations listed below
# This attempts to block the most common type of exploit `attempts` to Joomla!
#
# Block out any script trying to base64_encode data within the URL.
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} base64_encode[^(]*\([^)]*\) [OR]
# Block out any script that includes a <script> tag in URL.
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} (<|%3C)([^s]*s)+cript.*(>|%3E) [NC,OR]
# Block out any script trying to set a PHP GLOBALS variable via URL.
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} GLOBALS(=|\[|\%[0-9A-Z]{0,2}) [OR]
# Block out any script trying to modify a _REQUEST variable via URL.
RewriteCond %{QUERY_STRING} _REQUEST(=|\[|\%[0-9A-Z]{0,2})
# Return 403 Forbidden header and show the content of the root homepage
RewriteRule .* index.php [F]
#
## End - Rewrite rules to block out some common exploits.
## Begin - Custom redirects
#
# If you need to redirect some pages, or set a canonical non-www to
# www redirect (or vice versa), place that code here. Ensure those
# redirects use the correct RewriteRule syntax and the [R=301,L] flags.
#
## End - Custom redirects
##
# Uncomment following line if your webserver's URL
# is not directly related to physical file paths.
# Update Your Joomla! Directory (just / for root).
##
RewriteBase /
## Begin - Joomla! core SEF Section.
#
RewriteRule .* - [E=HTTP_AUTHORIZATION:%{HTTP:Authorization}]
#
# If the requested path and file is not /index.php and the request
# has not already been internally rewritten to the index.php script
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/index\.php
# and the request is for something within the component folder,
# or for the site root, or for an extensionless URL, or the
# requested URL ends with one of the listed extensions
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} /component/|(/[^.]*|\.(php|html?|feed|pdf|vcf|raw))$ [NC]
# and the requested path and file doesn't directly match a physical file
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f
# and the requested path and file doesn't directly match a physical folder
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d
# internally rewrite the request to the index.php script
RewriteRule .* index.php [L]
#
## End - Joomla! core SEF Section.
Thank you, once again for the information.

- Bryan Earl