$current_category_id incorrect on product page

Hey guys,
I have a problem with zencart defaulting to 'master category id' on a product page.
for some reason our cart doesn't seem to follow the true path of $current_category_id.

From a fresh install it seems that the $current_category_id is adeared to when clicking through to a product page.

my problem is this
e.g.

i have product 235 - its in category 6(master) and category 7.

I navigate from category 6 to the product and $current_category_id = 6 -Which is correct.

I navigate from category 7 to the product page and $current_category_id = 6 - Which is incorrect.

and weirder still the url structure takes the last place the product was copied to regardless of if the product came from the master category page.

so for example product 789 is in category 111(master), 222, 333. I copied the product last to cat 333.

I navigate from 111 to product and Url structure would be /shop/333/789.html.

I navigate from 222 to product and Url structure would be /shop/333/789.html.

I navigate from 333 to product and Url structure would be /shop/333/789.html.

Clearly its somthing that has been messed about with before i arrived here, because its always done this and only now is it affecting functionality where i need 'current_category_id' to be correct so that my custom nav shows only in a certain category.

At category level my custom nav shows fine because 'current_category_id' is still being adeared to but then when i click on the product from this cat it doesn't display my custom nav.

guys i really need help with this, i just have no clue where to start.

regards

Andy.

Zen Cart doesn't normally create URLs in the form of "/shop/333/789.html", so those URLs must be getting altered by a so-called SEO addon.

Is there something wrong with your addon?

I've often asked this question but as i wasn't around when this module was installed i'm reluctant to tinker with it.

But surely the seo module shouldn't be affecting the '$current_category_id' and even if it was it would mean it should default to the 'master category id' url.

But Dr i think you may well be right about the seo module being broken to some extent, i just have to work out which of the two is being used. it's either 'ultimate-seo' or its 'magic-seo' is there a way to tell which one is being used?

regards

Andy.

I would check if you have a switch to turn those off or something and then look at the Known Bug Fixes for v1.3.8 at:
http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?p=610860#post610860

and review the ones on master_categories_id or categories_id or cpath that have been posted to see if that clears up the problem ...

Hello thanks for replying i've corrected:

Problem: Sales made with Salemaker having trouble on some sales with Linked Products ...

Problem: Looking up fields in products and products_description and looking up fields in categories and categories_description ...

Problem: Lookup of fields in products or products_description by products_id in the Admin

Symptom:
There's a bug in v1.3.8 which only shows when you have
Admin->Configuration->Layout Settings->Categories - Always Show on Main Page = 1

However none of these seemed to have fixed the issue.

Any other ideas?

Andy.

Turn off the SEO to see if this is contributing to the problem ...

Heya ajeh,

i've found out 2 things

1. we have magic-seo installed

2. its this thats knocking it out.

when i temporarly removed this the 'current_category_id' worked correctly and also my orginal 'cpath' method for including my nav worked as well.

Next step for me is contacting them ill update here with the outcome for the benefit on any other people who are encountering this problem

regards

Andy.

Thanks for the information that your SEO is the issue ... let us know what you find out ... :smile:

I've got the same trouble as topic starter has.
I didn't found any solution on this forum. I've googled hard and as a result I've found this:
ddmin.com/zen-cart_zen_get_products_category_id-bug/
It is in Chinese, but google translated it pretty well:
translate.google.com/translate?js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&sl=auto&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ddmin.com%2Fzen-cart_zen_get_products_category_id-bug%2F

But in my situation variable $current_category_id wasn't NULL, but 4.
In this case I didn't found anything better than disabling IF.
So my zen_get_products_category_id function looks so:

  function zen_get_products_category_id($products_id) {
    global $db;

/* ori
    $the_products_category_query = "select products_id, master_categories_id from " . TABLE_PRODUCTS . " where products_id = '" . (int)$products_id . "'";
    $the_products_category = $db->Execute($the_products_category_query);

    return $the_products_category->fields['master_categories_id'];
*/
//bof category icon display fix, by Yury
//if (! $the_products_category->fields['master_categories_id']) {
    $d_p2c_cid = $db->Execute('SELECT categories_id FROM `' . TABLE_PRODUCTS_TO_CATEGORIES . '` WHERE products_id="' . $products_id . '"')->fields['categories_id'];
    $the_products_category->fields['master_categories_id'] = $d_p2c_cid;
//echo $d_p2c_cid;
//}
    return $d_p2c_cid;
//eof category icon display fix, by Yury
  }

The site is Ok now, there are no secretes with that. Here I am - http://cellchaos.com

I'm tired with this fix, and now I don't wish to find out why my $current_category_id wasn't NULL
Please let me know if there are better solutions...