Specials - frust

[Muddler]

I am trying to deactivate a large number of specials.
I have gone into the "Specials" table of the DB and put in an "Expires" date that is in the past. How do I trigger Zencart to see this date and take the product off special ?

Thanks

[Ajeh]

The start/expiration for Specials runs 1 time (once) per session from the Catalog ...

From the Admin it is checked with each change ...

So if you are looking at the Catalog ... and change the special it will not change in the Catalog for you during that session ...

But if you go to the Admin ... it will change for you right away ...

Had it been your first hit for the session in the Catalog ... then it would of changed for you ...

[Muddler]

Ajeh -

I can't really say that I fully understand your post.
However, logging out and back into Admin did trigger the update of the "status" field in the Specials table - setting it to "0" for those products that I had set expiration dates on.

Thank you very much

[Ajeh]

Just moving in the Admin would trigger it ...

The Admin constantly updates the site where the customer updates many things 1 time per session to save time ...

[peeceelee]

Just want to confirm functionality...
if i set a start and end date for a special, I have to be logged in to admin at midnight and actively clicking around for the special to be activated/deactivated?

[Ajeh]

No ... fortunately not ...

The time is midnight ... the trigger is who touches the site first from midnight ...

Customer comes in at 12:01am ... bingo! Specials are enabled/disabled before they see the first display of the page ...

[peeceelee]

Thanks for the quick reply, Ajeh...I should have just read your first post more carefully!

This does not seem to working on my site...i'm using v1.3.5 and have force cookie use to True (not sure if that affects it). I had a special set for a certain date and it did not update until I logged into my admin page. There were many people viewing the site, waiting before midnight for the new special. But I wouldn't think that not one new session viewed the catalog after 12:01. In fact, when I first viewed the catalog at around 7am, the old special was still there and only when I logged into admin, did the specials change.

I have made a lot of mods to my site...is there any specific code where this update happens, that I should look at to make sure I didn't screw anything up?

I know you guys are busy, no rush..I can manually do the specials for now.

[Ajeh]

The current method is first person to touch the site at midnight will trigger the event ...

But if they are already on the site the site does not re-update with each click ...

What you may be looking for is a method to know Joe hits the site at 11:59pm ...

This hit runs the update on specials ...

Joe continues to shop for 30 minutes ... the update is not run again it was ran by Joe at 11:59pm once per session ...

However, Harry hits the site at 12:01am ...

This hit runs the update on specials ...

Now both Joe and Harry see the new Specials ...

If you need a secondary timer where if the session already exists and switches across midnight ... this could be customized so Joe does not see "yesterday" prices until Harry comes in ...

[peeceelee]

Hi again,

thanks for the help so far. I've been testing the functionality over the past few days...I would open a new browser and hit my site just after midnight (would this should create a new session?) but still no update on the specials. If i hit my admin page, then the specials update and all is good.

can you point me in the direction of the code that performs this update on the catalog side? If i were to update it so that all hits, even with existing sessions, would update the specials...would that negatively affect the performance of my site?

Thanks