client having "blank page returned" when trying to do a cc purchase

[alida]

I am new to this, so if I ask stupid questions - sorry. I use v1.5 and had an issue with a client having "blank page returned" when trying to do a cc purchase. I tried to do one myself and got the same response. I read through the forums, got to #21 and try the solution by adding the line, changed all my products to "virtual" and "always free shipping" - I only have downloadable products. Tried to do the purchase again - only to be returned to my site and got the message:

We are sorry for the inconvenience; however, at the present time we are unable to use PayPal to process orders from the geographic region you selected as your PayPal address. Please continue using normal checkout and select from the available payment methods to complete your order.

Does not matter what I do- tried numerous times with Credit Card and 'Pay with my PayPal account" and every time got the same message. Also had some customers, reporting the same problem. I removed the line as in #21, changed my products back to not virtual an require shipping address . no luck.
I do not have any zones set up in my admin and has the Freeshipper module installed.
Some customers were able to complete their transactions before the blank page episode, but since then it seems that everyone gets the same message.
Please Help!!!!

[DrByte]

What are all the ways by which your site is customized or different from a brand new uncustomized install, both in terms of PHP files and all admin configuration setting changes, tax zones, tax rates, countries, state-zones, geo-zones etc?

(Ya, I know you said "I do not have any zones set up in my admin". That's the geo-zones part, but not the Zones where states are matched to countries, etc, and not the setup of taxes ... and if you do have taxes set up then you must have "zones set up in your admin" somewhere ... so please clarify that also.)

[alida]

Hallo - I am really a beginner with all this - so if I do not answer in full - I most probably do not know exactly what you want and were to find it - so be patient please.
I do not have any taxes set up - so no zones for that. I did not have changed any thing to block/permit certain countries/ states /zones (That I know of!)
I do not now where in admin is the geo-part and zone were the states are match to countries what my settings is :in Locations/countries all are available - nothing changed there. Countries and ISO codes are listed there.
In ZONES: there are 8 pages with zones listed -from Australia to Italy - I have never changed thing here - but I just wonder, there are no US zones or South African Zones - can this be where a problem lays? I've never looked at this before as I did not exclude/specify any zone in any setting.
Zone Definitions: nothing configured here - displaying 0 of 0
Tax classes and Tax rates also 0 of 0
I installed the line in given in#21 of the thread in the Forum for "PayPal has unexpectedly returned a Blank page " but did not change any other php files.
I did not get a bank page again when I tried a checkout test again, but then got this:
We are sorry for the inconvenience at the present time we are unable to use PayPal to process orders from the geographic region you selected as your PayPal address. Please continue using normal checkout and select from the available payment methods to complete the order.
I am sorry if I am longwinded but I hope this can help.
My products are all downloads , all set up an non virtual and shipping address required as in the FAQ explained and it works well - did not have any problems with this before.
I've got the Free shipper module activated, also Flat Rate and Store Pickup - but as I do not have any shippable products, the shipping page should be skipped by Checkout?
I feel that something is missing with my setup re zones etc. but do not know where to look.
Thanks for helping Alida

[DrByte]

In ZONES: there are 8 pages with zones listed -from Australia to Italy - I have never changed thing here - but I just wonder, there are no US zones or South African Zones

There should be United States zones for each state. But I doubt there are any in there by default for South Africa.
If you've not changed anything there, then I wouldn't expect a problem.

I've got the Free shipper module activated, also Flat Rate and Store Pickup - but as I do not have any shippable products, the shipping page should be skipped by Checkout?

Yes, the shipping page should be skipped when the customer's basket contains only downloads. Are you saying that the Shipping page is actually showing up?

[alida]

No, it does not, what I mean is - do there have to be a shipping module installed and if so which one? (as no shipping are actually used?
Can I add the US state zones and also other countries somehow?
If I try to do a test checkout with PayPal, I get the Geographic region message, so I don't get any where - as I am in South Africa should I add that somewhere?
What I cannot understand is that everything worked ok, got a test done, got some orders through, and then all of a sudden start to get these problems and now everything is a mess.
As I said I am a total dummy, but can I delete and re-install the shipping modules/ zones etc with WinSCP or will it cause more harm?
Alida

[DrByte]

It's prudent to have a shipping module installed. Flat Rate is fine. But, as you said, when all your products are downloads the shipping is skipped entirely.

In your Admin, in your list of countries, is South Africa present? Has it been tampered with? Spelling changed? short-codes changed from defaults?

The "no payment modules for your geographic zone" message occurs when the customer's billing address doesn't match available countries in your store. And, IF you also have zones for provinces/states set up for the country they've selected then their province/state must also match one of what you've set up. Further, if you've also added Zone Definitions then your payment module will have a "Payment zone" dropdown, from which you could choose a zone to restrict that module to work with. If you don't wish to impose any restrictions, leave that to --None--.

Out-of-the-box using PayPal with South Africa addresses has no issue. But if you've changed the default country data, or the default zones data, or imposed zone restrictions in your paypal module, you will get the error message you quoted.

[alida]

Hallo; In my list of countries are 195 countries including South Africa. My payment module (PayPal Express0 the zones are set on "none".I did not tamper here, but I did not do the initial set-up of my site myself - only set up the attributes/products and the PayPal Express module myself. What I do know is that the guy who did the initial set up deleted all countries but South Africa and then put it back when I asked him to. But I did not change default country/ zone data. What worries me it that everything was working and then all of a sudden these problems started. Will it help if I revert to a backup made before these problems started?
And then also the zones in admin - like I said there is Countries from Australia to Italy each with states/ provinces all set up- but not for the rest of the countries like the US - no states shown. Feels to me that something went missing here? Can I add it in some way - and how?

[DrByte]

Oh gosh.
Ya, you can't just blindly go deleting countries like that, because now you've altered all the country and zone IDs internally.

Restore the following tables from your database backup taken before the hacking of your countries data:
- countries
- zones
- zones_to_geo_zones
- geo_zones
- tax_rates

[alida]

Hi, the counties were delete with the initial setup, before I started to upload my products - so I do not have a backup that will include all of that. I did ask the guy to install the 5 items listed on the server so that it will be available - please remember that you work with dummy nr 1. The changes that I can see now in my admin under locations/ zones are:
Countries - still there with 195 countries and ISO codes.
Zones - no change - 8 pages with 157 zones - no USA/ UK/South Africa
Zone definitions: a folder called GLOBAL ZONE , status not configured, number of zones 0, number of tax rates 1
Tax classes: ID 2 Tax class zero rated
Tax Rates: priority 1; Tax class Zero rated; Zone Global; Tax rate 0%; Description Zero Rated

I've done a test order again, same results.
I had about 20 orders for free designs since last night - got no complaints - so I suppose all of them went through without problem.
only when PayPal gets involved that the problems start.
I got an email from PayPal to ask my opinion of their support service - I also asked their help when the problem reared its ugly head - but got no reply - but for the questionnaire to rate their service??
I had a look at Zen cart v1.5 installation files to compare what I see there to what I see in the files when I log in with WinSCP - will I be able to learn anything that way to see if something is missing in my php files? (remember the dummy) I still got a feeling that when PayPal connects to my site there is something missing - but what and where?
I don't know if I give you the correct information to help. Thanks for trying.

[DrByte]

A fresh new install has I believe 243 countries and 296 zones.

The problem right now is that to wipe out and replace yours also breaks all the address-book entries for your existing customers, since those addresses contain zone ID and country ID numbers that are linked to your existing country/zone ID numbers. So putting your countries and zones back to what they should be originally might end up changing all your customers' addresses to suddenly point to very different country/zone(state/province) values.
So what's needed is to have someone inspect every one of your customers' addresses, note what their current countryID and zone ID are set to, and then update every one of those to what they ought to be after putting back all the original country and zone data.

And even then there's no guarantee that that'll actually fix your occasional errors from PayPal.