Encapsulated Plugin AJAX Call Fails with 400 Bad Request in ZC 2.1

[Techiant]

Hello,

I'm developing an encapsulated plugin for Zen Cart 2.1 and have run into a persistent AJAX routing issue.

My plugin successfully injects JavaScript onto the page, and that script makes a standard POST request to ajax.php with an action and method (e.g., ajax.php?act=MyAction&method=myMethod). The POST data correctly includes the securityToken.

When the call is made, the server responds with a 400 Bad Request. This indicates the ajax.php router is receiving the request but rejects the action as invalid.

My AJAX handler class (e.g., class zcAjaxMyAction) and its corresponding file (zcAjaxMyAction.php) are located in my plugin's .../catalog/includes/classes/ajax/ directory. The class and file names appear to follow the standard zcAjaxPascalCase convention.

What is the definitive method for an encapsulated plugin to register its AJAX handler classes so they are discoverable by the ajax.php router? The automatic discovery does not seem to be working, and my attempts to manually register the path using an auto_loaders config file have failed.

Any insight into the correct process for ZC 2.1 would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

[lat9]

It'll help if you could post the contents of your javascript/jquery and ajax class for review. If you're hesitant to post directly, send them to me via PM.

[Techiant]

It'll help if you could post the contents of your javascript/jquery and ajax class for review. If you're hesitant to post directly, send them to me via PM.

Oh gosh! After smashing my head against this for several hours, I decided to just extensively test ajax.php and log every step. It turns out the issue was that I was setting my method as my_method which in ajax.php was failing at line 51:

if (!isset($_GET['act'], $_GET['method']) || !preg_match('/^[a-zA-Z0-9]+$/', $_GET['act']) || !preg_match('/^[a-zA-Z0-9]+$/', $_GET['method'])) 

I feel super dumb for not paying attention to that regex for $_GET['method'] but relieved that finally made the connection :)