Australia Post Delivery Rate Server Down

[RodG]

'Evening Phillip,

If I were allowed to swear in this forum I'd have to say "its got me @#$%ed".

Thanks to your tests, and what I'm seeing in the austpost log files things *should* be working for you. I say should because I'm seeing several things that just don't add up, and I can't really explain.

I DID find a bug in the AustPost module, but the bug is in the debugging code (how ironic). That H = 2.5 that you have commented on is a bug. I'm displaying the wrong variable. That is the default value, not the value being used.
'course, that took me around in circles a bit.

I suppose some good news for you won't go astay though. Thanks to your '1234' postcode test I can now confirm that you have connectivity to the server(s). This means that your cURL related stuff is correctly set up and therefore you no longer need to play around with that side of things.

Now, before I go any further in depth with my findings, earlier in this thread (msg#48 I think), you stated "My site is www.lakinplates.com".

Can you tell me, or do you know anything about www.iibuy.com.au?

Cheers
Rod

[Geronimo]

Hi Rod

At least we have connected to the Auspost site. I guess that's good news.... not sure where to go from there though. :)

I haven't come across the iiBuy site before. I've just brought it up and am looking at it now.

....later - it looks to be as new as my site though. :)

.... and that he uses your module which seems to WORK for him.

[RodG]

Hi Rod

At least we have connected to the Auspost site. I guess that's good news.... not sure where to go from there though. :)

I haven't come across the iiBuy site before. I've just brought it up and am looking at it now.

....later - it looks to be as new as my site though. :)

.... and that he uses your module which seems to WORK for him.

I think the good news just went bad. I was looking for a '1234' postcode in the server logs hoping to identify where your connections were coming from (if anywhere). There were only a couple of entries, all in the last 24 hours (out of 3 months worth of logs), so I was assuming they were you. Alas, I guess not. IOW, I think we are once again back to a server connectivity problem. Just to be sure, or not, can we try another test product 100x100x100 to postcode 1010 instead of 1234. Thanks
Rod

[Geronimo]

Hi Rod

I made the new product 8 x 8 x 8 and 150gms weight. I've estimated shipping a few times using 1010 as the postcode. I wonder if that's shown up....

[RodG]

Hi Rod

I made the new product 8 x 8 x 8 and 150gms weight. I've estimated shipping a few times using 1010 as the postcode. I wonder if that's shown up....

Sorry Philip, but I'm afraid it is all bad news from here. There is nothing in the logs to signify any accesses using the 1010 postcode, so that means you are back to a connectivity related problem, and for that you are back at the mercy of the folks at godaddy.

About the only other advice I can give at this stage is when testing, always use a dummy product with the dimensions 10x10x10 and a weight of 100gms (or 0.100kgs). These values actually have a special meaning to the server(s) (assuming you can get that far), so by using them, you can concentrate on the connectivity issue rather than a possible invalid data issue.

The debug information (debug = 1 ) proved (other than the bug that it revealed) that your zencart has been installed correctly, the data from the users shopping cart is being extracted and passed to the AP module ok, and that the AP module itself is performing the correct calculations.
What it isn't doing is connecting to the server(s).

I'll get back to you if I can think of anything else, but I honestly think we have succesfully eliminated every other possible cause and explored every possible work around.

Cheers
Rod

ps. If you can get hold of that helpful person at godaddy perhaps you can get him to go through their logs to see exactly what their server is doing to requests to either austpost.vcsweb.com or drc.edieliver.com.au, because they definitely aren't getting to the servers, even if they do say it isn't being blocked.

[Geronimo]

Thanks for your exhaustive checking and testing Rod. I'll call GoDaddy again and see if I can get more detailed info from them. I'll post it here in the next few days.

Thanks again.

Kind regards
Philip

[RodG]

Philip,
If you are still up, and don't mind a bit more debugging, if you load austpost.php into a text editor, somewhere around line#885 is a commented out line that start like "echo 'INFO <pre> .... "

If you can uncomment the line by removing the leading // then resave the file and try another quote. I have a feeling that this may give us some useful info.

Cheers
Rod

[Geronimo]

Hi Rod

I must have knocked off a few minutes too soon. :)

OK, I've found the line you mentioned. It's followed immediately by four other lines as shown below. I've only uncommented the first line though. I hope that's correct.

// echo 'INFO: <pre>'; print_r($info); echo '</pre><br />' ; echo 'ERROR: ' . $error . '<br />'; print_r($data) ;
// if ($data != '') {
$myfile = explode("\n", $data);
return $myfile ;
// }

So it now looks like this:
echo 'INFO: <pre>'; print_r($info); echo '</pre><br />' ; echo 'ERROR: ' . $error . '<br />'; print_r($data) ;
// if ($data != '') {
$myfile = explode("\n", $data);
return $myfile ;
// }

By the time you see this, I will have tried quoting again. I'll use a product with H, W and L set to 10cm and weight to 100gms and will use postcode 1010. I'll do some quotes with postcode 1234 as well.

Let's see what it gives us.

Regards

Philip

[Geronimo]

Well, here's the result of the change to the austpost.php file:

********************
INFO:


ERROR: Received error code 403 from proxy
via sessionoverideC 1000 - W 10.00 - H 2.5 - L 10.00 - I
INFO:


ERROR: Received error code 403 from proxy
INFO:


ERROR: Received error code 403 from proxy
INFO:


ERROR: Received error code 403 from proxy
via sessionoverideC 1000 - W 10.00 - H 2.5 - L 10.00 - I
INFO:


ERROR: Received error code 403 from proxy
INFO:


ERROR: Received error code 403 from proxy
********************

Does that tell you it's GoDaddy blocking the request, or would it be something I need to change in my files, I wonder?

Thanks again, Rod.

Regards

Philip

[RodG]

Well, here's the result of the change to the austpost.php file:

ERROR: Received error code 403 from proxy
********************
Does that tell you it's GoDaddy blocking the request, or would it be something I need to change in my files, I wonder?

Philip

Yes, that tells us without any doubt whatsoever that it is godaddy that is blocking the request. "error code 403' is a 'permission denied' error, and the error is clearly coming from the cURL proxy server (which means that all of your cURL settings are almost certainly correct.

I reckon that if you report this error message , exactly as given,
ERROR: Received error code 403 from proxy", to the 'helpful' person you spoke to before they won't have any other choice than to investigate further as to why they are giving you a permission denied.

BTW, the reason why you saw several of these same error messages is because out of necessity the AP module has to do seperate lookups for each of the available shipping methods, and each error line is a result of the same error; ie, permission denied.

I really have heard bad things about the 'helpfullness' of godaddy's support, so I wish you the best of luck. However, you now have *evidence* that the problem is theirs, and not something that you have messed up (the error message is produced by *their* server, not the ap module), so go get 'em

Cheers
Rod.