Sudden Epath Gateway Problem

[websmith]

Hope I am doing this right and in the right place.

I have 7 zen-cart sites running and the problem appears on all. Six are live sites and one a test site.

I will not list all the domains but www.rocknrollshirtshop.com is one of the live sites and the test site if anyone wants to run a test is www.rocknrollshirtshop.biz.

The problem I am encountering is the Epath payment is intermittently (somewhere around 1 out of 5 orders) not completing so I receive the payment information from epath
but the order does not complete in zen cart and the items remain in the customers shopping cart with no order, confirmation of epath payment or heads up email sent.

The problem can be duplicated (and this may be the cause) by not returning to the site when the payment is complete. Epath is slow returning the customer (approximately 25 seconds with a please wait screen) so there is a lot of time for the customer to bail out.

I have talked to Epath and they blame the cart for the problem saying they completed their part since I received the payment email.

PayPal and check are also available payment methods and PayPal never shows this problem.

The sites are on a dedicated Ubuntu 12.04 server on the peer1 network and I have had the server checked it does not appear to be dropping connection.

The sites are all close to the same configuration. From the standard install I add

Zen-Cart 1.5.1
Google Merchant Center Mod 1.13.0
Ultimate SEO 2.212
Configure RCS has just been added but problem was there before
Sitemap XML 3.2.12
Easy Populate 4
USPS 7/28/13 (on some sites)
UPS (on some sites)

I have not found any errors in the log folder that would match when the problem occurs, and I have not seen anything in the systems logs.

Has anyone seen anything similar?

[jumbuck2]

I have already replied to you in another thread where you posted exactly the same - you might like to delete one of them.

FYI here is a copy and paste of my reply ....

Hi Websmith,

It was me who attempted the first ZC/e-Path plugin many years ago which did not work very well. DrByte came to help and we got it working. I think he again helped to update the code in the latest version. e-Path and ZC work fine for me. I have three ZC's each with e-Path. I have never experienced the 25 seconds you talk about. With me it is more like four to five seconds before my website displays after e-Path but my web site hosting is pretty fast, no delays.

I went to your site to check it out but you don't have a ssl cert. This could be a problem because e-Path returns people and some info via post to your site. Firefox will interrupt the flow (agrrrr) of moving info via post from a secure site to a non-secure site by way of a warning about possibly not being safe. Some people might just shut their browser down in mid flight out of fear something is wrong so ZC doesn't see the people back. I don't think ZC will record the order if they don't get the people back. Getting a ssl cert is a good idea anyway cause nobody will get any interruptions then.

DrByte will know more than me about how the plug in works but it is very basic. Every person ZC accepts back from your gateway is closed off as if the payment was completed successfully as long as ZC gets the person back I think. It they don't come back then I don't think you would ever know except e-Path would still be doing its thing independent of whether your ZC is working or not.

Can you post your two e-Path plug in files and I will have a look at them by comparing them to mine.

J.

[jumbuck2]

I hope you don't mind but I have emailed my contact in e-Path about your problem. I hope he is still there. I've seen e-Path reply to people here in these forums before.

J.

[websmith]

Sorry I was expecting and email when a reply came in and not had a chance to check. I have attached the original zip from epath with the files used it would not let me attach the actual php files. The same files were used with each site and 2 gateways are used.

[jumbuck2]

Sorry I was expecting and email when a reply came in and not had a chance to check. I have attached the original zip from epath with the files used it would not let me attach the actual php files. The same files were used with each site and 2 gateways are used.

You are using the same plugins as me. I can not see any difference.

The copyright notice says the ZC/e-Path files were by RodG dated 6/7/2013. I think you might find he is from the ZC forums here too. He did a really good job from what I can see. I have been using e-Path for years on my ZC's and have not had a single problem yet.

I don't think your prob is the plugin files cause they don't do much but they do it well.

Going back to what you are saying, if you are getting the payment information advice from e-Path then it has completed what it needs to do. You are telling us your ZC is not recording things. I am no expert, but I reckon here are some possibilities:

1. Is your ZC sending a return ZC web address as the "ret" value to e-Path so e-Path knows where to return the customer to?
2. An outage with your hosting.
3. Could be one of your other plugins is interrupting ZC from recording things.
4. Not having a ssl cert (I explained this one already). This one gets my bet cause your site does not seem to have a ssl cert which means people could be shutting down their browser to stay safe if they get the browser warning so your ZC never sees them back so it does not record anything.

I have been recommending ZC for years now cause it is an excellent fast and light weight ecommerce platform - many of the latest ecommerce carts are all too heavy, too complex, too bloated and way too s..l..o..w. And for anyone who wants to be 100% PCI complant online with their ZC and who has a MOTO or EFTPOS terminal who wants to charge cards offline instead of having to pay huge ongoing fees and charges, I also highly recommend e-Path. It is a no brainer. From my own experience and from others who I have helped set up with ZC and e-Path, both work really well together and get people out of having to worry about PCI compliance online.

[websmith]

Going back to what you are saying, if you are getting the payment information advice from e-Path then it has completed what it needs to do. You are telling us your ZC is not recording things.

Correct the client record is completed and items are in the shopping cart, the order is totaled correctly and shipping added since the amount sent for epath to charge is correct.

Some orders complete fine but others I get the email from epath with payment information but on the zen cart side with the correct amount for what they ordered.

On the zen cart side all that shows is the customer record where they created their login. There is no order information or epath confirmation that the payment was made. The module that recovers abandonded carts show the items for that customer are still in the shopping cart, so they were not lost just never finalized into an order.

This behavior is easy to duplicate, just make an order and bail out before the epath can return you to the site. I have talked to several customers with missing orders and except for one all have indicated they did not see anything odd occur. I have not asked if they bailed out before returning since I just discovered this recently.


1. Is your ZC sending a return ZC web address as the "ret" value to e-Path so e-Path knows where to return the customer to?

I am not sure how to prove it but I would say yes since it does receive some payments with no problem

2. An outage with your hosting.

It is on the peer1 network on a dedicated very lightly loaded server and Peer1 has check the NIC and reported no problems

3. Could be one of your other plugins is interrupting ZC from recording things.

This could be possible and is one reason I sent the list but so far have not been able to find anything and prove it.

4. Not having a ssl cert (I explained this one already). This one gets my bet cause your site does not seem to have a ssl cert which means people could be shutting down their browser to stay safe if they get the browser warning so your ZC never sees them back so it does not record anything.

The servers has SSL for admin just turned off for the store with a self signed cert the test site (rocknrollshirtshop.biz) I turned on the ssl for the store (again self signed but it still should show if it resolved the problem) and the same problem existed. If the customer does not return to the site, if they get tired of the long wait and go elsewhere then the order will not complete. I have tested paypal and authorize.net and neither of these show the problem. It appears the problem is because there is no hand shake confirming the information returned from epath was received. But if you have never seen the problem then I question even that but not sure where to go from here.

[websmith]

I had posted this under a thread I had with 1.5.7 zen cart problems but I did not get any response so I guess that was the wrong place so I will try this way.

The problem started right after upgrading to 1.5.7 and the epath module was updated. Scott has said the problem is not caused by the changes made to the module.

I an seeing an intermittent problem with epath payments getting a zen cart session timeout when the customer returns to the site. There are no errors generated in the debug log for this problem and I have been unable to duplicate it from my machines.

I was able to walk through with a customer having the problem repeatedly and here is what happened.

He placed his order and went through the payment screens and selected epath. Epath came up the necessary information was filled out and he clicked the finish. The Epath please wait screen came up returning him to the site, he saw the site but got a Whoops your session has timed out message and it put him back in his shopping cart.

I am seeing multiple customer orders with multiple epath payments coming through, some abandon the carts others finally get the order to complete. I have talked to several frustrated customers that told me they got a timeout but I did not have the specifics that the timeout was the cart until working with the customer today.

Any help in resolving this issue would be very much appreciated

Information requested for new post
Site URL www.shirtcrazy.com and others
ZC Version 1.5.7
Plugins epath, paypal express, recover cart, Google merch feed and sitemap.xml
PHP 7.4.8

[DrByte]

I don't think this has anything to do with v157.

I think it's related to changes made by browsers (particularly Chrome 84) regarding samesite cookie enforcement rules, vs processing payments via another website.

I think applying the change described here will help:
https://www.zen-cart.com/showthread....44#post1373144

[lat9]

I don't think this has anything to do with v157.

I think it's related to changes made by browsers (particularly Chrome 84) regarding samesite cookie enforcement rules, vs processing payments via another website.

I think applying the change described here will help:
https://www.zen-cart.com/showthread....44#post1373144

Right, as identified in post #60 of this thread, ePath requires the samesite cookie set to none;secure.