Longer option comments field?

[eriswerks]

I'd like to add comments of more than 64 characters to my product options. I found one other thread mentioning this, in which Ajeh suggests the answer is to edit the products_options table and set it to a longer width.

Looking at my products_options table, the only fields I see are products_options_id, language_id, and products_options_name. I can't seem to find a "comments" field anywhere in any of the products-related tables. I have added comments to a couple things already, and their poor truncated selves do show up, so I know the field exists somewhere.

Ajeh or anyone else, do you know where exactly that field is?

[Ajeh]

The products_options table has lots of fields, 11 or so ... the one you want is the:
products_options_comment

If you do not see these ... you have a database issue ...

[eriswerks]

Hmm, this is getting strange then. My products_options table only appears to have three fields, but I am able to set (64 character) comments in admin and have them appear on the product pages. So clearly the comments field does exist, I'm just not seeing it somehow.

Just for fun I tried adding a products_options_comment field to the products_options table with type varchar(255). It went through, no error messages, and now the field does appear in the list. (See the screenshot below.) But, there's still a 64-character limit on comments! I also didn't lose the comment data I'd already entered.

I don't get it... this is a fresh install of the latest version of Zen Cart, and I've done no database tinkering prior to this. It's clearly reading and writing values, but I can't see the fields and changes I make have no effect. My web host is godaddy, and they have an automatic install of Zen Cart, so I imagine the install was done properly.

[Ajeh]

Look at your two configure.php files side by side:
/includes/configure.php
/admin/includes/configure.php

Are they both referencing everything the same on the URLs and paths etc.?

Are they both referencing everything in the same manner for the database?

NOTE: do not post that information here with username and password etc.

[Ajeh]

umm ... just for giggles and grins ... can you go into your Admin ... Tools ... Server Info ... and post everything from below the menubar up to and including the large PHP VERSION blah blah blah ...

[eriswerks]

Here's what I have for server info... I'm going to check where my database links are pointing momentarily.

http://www.bestcarmagnet.com/serverinfo.html

[eriswerks]

I'm looking at both configure.php files in winmerge. All of the database-related stuff is 100% identical between the two. I can't find any other differences that seem abnormal to me.

[Ajeh]

Something is not right in your database ... sounds like you are missing 6 or 7 fields ...

[Ajeh]

This is the structure that you should be seeing:

DROP TABLE IF EXISTS products_options;
CREATE TABLE products_options (
products_options_id int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
language_id int(11) NOT NULL default '1',
products_options_name varchar(32) NOT NULL default '',
products_options_sort_order int(11) NOT NULL default '0',
products_options_type int(5) NOT NULL default '0',
products_options_length smallint(2) NOT NULL default '32',
products_options_comment varchar(64) default NULL,
products_options_size smallint(2) NOT NULL default '32',
products_options_images_per_row int(2) default '5',
products_options_images_style int(1) default '0',
products_options_rows smallint(2) NOT NULL default '1',
PRIMARY KEY (products_options_id,language_id),
KEY idx_lang_id_zen (language_id),
KEY idx_products_options_sort_order_zen (products_options_sort_order),
KEY idx_products_options_name_zen (products_options_name)
) TYPE=MyISAM;

[eriswerks]

I finally got this resolved. After waiting a couple weeks, I went back into the database and lo, there are all the fields I was supposed to be seeing all along. Something mysterious was happening on my host's end, and just as mysteriously it has fixed itself. I guess that's good, but it does leave me just a little nervous!