oz post shipping module help

rod, i have been having issues with the oz shipping, i have now built 2 sites with zencart and when i first set them up and tested them the shipping worked but it no longer does.. so i have read through the forums to try and work out the problem.. i changed the setting Use cURL to YES, and now its working better than it was and everything is not $0 but now the registered mail and prepaid satchel comes up as $0 and they should be standard prices?
your help would be appreciated

samanthar:

but now the registered mail and prepaid satchel comes up as $0 and they should be standard prices?
your help would be appreciated

Uninstall your "AustPost - Improved module" and replace it with the "ozpost" module. (click on the link in my sig).

Cheers
Rod

Hi Rod,
thanks for that, did the trick nicely. Still have the issue of a blank screen once the continue to checkout button has been clicked in the step one of three in the delivery information page.

Cheers.

Hi Rod,
the shipping estimator is down again. It did have the oz post module on there instead of the aust post one and when i uninstalled it and re-installed it it worked, although very briefly. All the box's are accessible now under the vcsweb logo/gif and i have turned on curl and debug and still nothing.

My mistake, sorry. The estimator is working fine it's just the ; continue to checkout ' button in the delivery information ( step 1 of 3 ) page that when clicked goes to a blank page.

Soulkreed:

I am having an issue now with the ' continue to checkout button ' on the shipping method page ( once a product has been selected and going through the process ) when I click on the continue to checkout button the screen goes blank. ( I am told by dot easy that there needs to be something done with the coding via paypal )

PayPal needs to connect back to your server for payment notifications, so yes, you will probably need to change/reset this on your PayPal account.

I'm not convinced that this is going to cause your blank page problem though.

Tip: Before hunting too far into this, try enabling the 'local pickup' module and disabling the PayPal module(s). If it really is PayPal related the 'blank page' problem should go away. If you still get a blank page the problem is something other than PayPal related.

Soulkreed:

Do i need to do something in paypal now that my site is uploaded with server as opposed to just being installed on my local computer? It was working fine when it was just on my local install but now i am on the server it isn't working.

I've just done a search on these forums, and it seems to be a pretty common compliant, with several different solutions, depending on the actual cause.

Soulkreed:

Any suggestions please.

Yes. Look into the other threads. This one is outside my area of expertise and I could easily give you 'bad' information.

Soulkreed:

Also i was hoping you could tell me how i can get the shopping cart text/hyperlink thing which is on the bottom left of the screen ( also one up the top which says checkout ) to appear as a bigger picture ( an actual cart or something as opposed to just text )

Gee, you sure like to ask the tough questions. As with the PayPal stuff, this is really outside my area of expertise. I would also suspect that this is tied in with whatever template you are using. Sorry I can't be more helpful on this one either.

Soulkreed:

Hope this has made some sense, perhaps you can take a squiz at it for me www.soulkreed.com and then click on the online store hyperlink text in the catagories tab and it will hopefully come up for you ( my online store, then you can see for yourself - fingers crossed, what I mean )

I took a quick look, and it looks like its coming along quite nicely (especially since all of the hassles you've been having). Alas, it didn't help me answer any of your questions.

The ozpost module seems to be working just fine, but I did notice that the ozpost file called "tpl_modules_shipping_estimator.php" hasn't been uploaded into the correct place (It needs to be placed into your templates folder of whatever template you are currently using.

This is a VERY MINOR issue though, the ozpost estimator works flawlessly using the original/default file. The only difference(s) being is that the replacement file that comes with the ozpost module has the 'States' dropdown selector removed (its not required for the ozpost module, which relies on the postcode instead). It ALSO prevents an invalid quote response the first time the module is invoked (which is caused because no valid postcode is available to quote on), so instead of an invalid quote, this replacment code displays a 'disclaimer' message to the customer, along with the destination input boxes. Again, it has no effect on the quotes themselves, it is mainly a matter of 'cosmetics'.

Cheers
Rod

Soulkreed:

None of my products are actually showing in the admin section but they are all showing in the actual store front itself. What the.....

I agree ... What the......

Soulkreed:

Do i need to put things back into the admin section ie: products, languages, currencies etc?

No, not if they are showing up in the store front.

Soulkreed:

How are they showing in the store front if they aren't showing in the admin section?

This is a very good question. I've not heard of anyone else that has had this happen to them before (but then again, there a lots of things I've never heard of before).

I can't even imagine what the cause could possibly be, UNLESS you are referring to the images of the products not showing up, rather than the products themselves, in which case I'd be thinking along the lines of a corrupted cache .. Try clearing out your browsers cache folder and see if the problem persists.

Cheers
Rod

Soulkreed:

selection under tools it was still showing the default template so i changed this back to magic as i did when i was creating the original zen cart in my local computer for testing before upload to server. Should i have done this?

Generally speaking, you can switch templates at any time with no ill effects. I know of some store owners that use a different template for various occasions, such as Xmas, Easter, they just activate the appropriate template when needed.

Soulkreed:

Are these just some of the tweaks i will need to be doing now it's on the server

Yes, minor tweaks are best done on the server.
Major changes are best tested on your local machine before transferring the files to the server (and always keep a backup handy, just incase things go astray).

Soulkreed:

( if so what are some of the other things i need to do please )
.

One of the very first things that you MUST do (if you haven't done it already) is to install the latest security patches (June 09), and follow the latest advisories, such as renaming your /admin/ folder and deleting the installation folder, etc.

IMPORTANT: When you rename your /admin/ folder you WILL need to edit your configure.php file to reflect the change of name, otherwise you'll not be able to get back into your admin section of the store.

Other 'tweaks' that I tend to make when installing a new store (for Australians) is to set the default country to be Australia, set the default currency to be Aussie Dollars, add NZD as an accepted currency, and unless selling adult products disable the Date_of_Birth requirement for new user registrations (many people see this as an invasion of privacy), and those silly Americans have their date format all wrong, using MM/DD/YYY rather than DD/MM/YYYY. :lookaroun

Although the date format can be changed, it is far easier to simply disable the requirement altogether, at least in my opinion.

Cheers
Rod

Hi Rod,
don't think my last reply went through so here it is again.
I have done almost all of the changes/security/suggestions, had trouble with the htaccess file it asks you to copy above other files/folders ( also suggests speaking to server for this - which i will do ), when changing the file permissions in images i had issues of my images changing shape/size on my online store front - so i put them back to how they were for now until i can work out how to do the security changes without the images actually changing.

I am still getting the blank page issue during checkout/payment, i will contact dot easy again and see what they say ( they said something about code - i'll ask them to elaborate )

Cheers.

Do i need to change the e-mail accounts that I have set up ie: all the test names/accounts ( [email protected] etc ) and if so what are the changes i need to make ( change the @example.com to ###################### or my gmail address that is set up with blogger - bit confused here as I have a soulkreed###################### address set up with blogger that handles all my stuff from blogger - but for my paypal notifications etc i have the address of shly_moore###################### - is it better to have the one address for all e-mails than two seperate ones for different things and if so how do i do it )?( i haven't found anything specific on it ) or do i leave them for now until the store is running properly before any changes are made?

Cheers.

Soulkreed:

I have done almost all of the changes/security/suggestions,

Although all security suggestions are for good reason, the most important ones are the June 2009 patches and recommendations.

Soulkreed:

had trouble with the htaccess file it asks you to copy above other files/folders

Offhand I can't recall the reasons for this particular suggestion, so I can't say how important it really is. As a general rule anything done with the .htaccess file(s) are measures to prevent unwanted information gathering rather than the far more serious remote exploit prevention.

Soulkreed:

when changing the file permissions in images i had issues of my images changing shape/size on my online store front - so i put them back to how they were for now until i can work out how to do the security changes without the images actually changing.

I can't imagine why changing file permissions would cause the image sizes to change. :dontgetit

Soulkreed:

I am still getting the blank page issue during checkout/payment, i will contact dot easy again and see what they say ( they said something about code - i'll ask them to elaborate )

Cheers.

Did you try my suggestion to disable PayPal and enable local pickup?
What were the results of trying this?

Cheers
Rod

Soulkreed:

Do i need to change the e-mail accounts that I have set up

Just because you have moved your store it doesn't mean any of your email addresses have changed.

Soulkreed:

is it better to have the one address for all e-mails than two seperate ones for different things

Emails are pretty much outside the realm of anything to do with zencart (unless your store has problems sending emails to your customers, or your admin email address.

To answer your question though, how you manage your emails is a 'personal' decision. Some people like all of their emails to arrive into a single mailbox for pickup while others like to have several independent mailboxes for redundancy purposes.

Also note that there is a difference between email accounts and email addresses. An email account is where you pick email up from, and an email address is where people send emails to.

Most servers allow many email addresses to be used for a single account. (these addresses are often referred to as 'aliases')

Again, this really isn't a zencart issue/problem. It is "Basic Computing 101"

Cheers
Rod

Hi Rod,
I tried disabling paypal module and having pick up only and the same thing happened with the blank screen. What are the June 09 patches ( I have only done the security stuff from Zen Cart site security ) that sounds different from those.

I have gone back into paypal and reset my urls as they were still pointing to https://www.example.com........ but the blank screen thing is still there.

Mystery..

Cheers.

Dot easy are asking me if i want to change from port 80 to 433 and they have given me the directions to change to ssl. I have done the changes and now i can't access the shopping cart at all, when i log one of my test customers back in it says something is wrong with security. I am going to change back to the original settings and see if there is a change.
Any suggestions please.

Soulkreed:

Hi Rod,
I tried disabling paypal module and having pick up only and the same thing happened with the blank screen.

This would indicate that the blank screen isn't caused by something amiss with your PayPal settings/installation.

This DOESN'T mean that your PayPal stuff is all correct, there may be other issues in that regard, but you can't possibly know that until take care of the blank screen problem.

Soulkreed:

What are the June 09 patches ( I have only done the security stuff from Zen Cart site security ) that sounds different from those.

http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=102802

However, if on your store admin screen, top right reads " Your version of Zen Cart™ appears to be current". then this patch has already been applied.

Soulkreed:

I have gone back into paypal and reset my urls as they were still pointing to www.example.com........ but the blank screen thing is still there.

Mystery..

The mystery is what is causing the blank screen. You have shown that it isn't caused by the PayPal module by disabling it, Therefore the problem is something else ... Something more 'global' than a fault with the individual modules.

Alas, a blank screen is a common symptom of many possible problems.

Best thing to do is scour these forums for any hints or tips that may be applicable to your particular scenario. The following link may be a good starting point

http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=57223&highlight=blank+screen+checkout

Cheers
Rod

Cheers mate, having a look around now.

Hi Rod,

I have installed Ozy Post and have gotten it working fine. Thank you for creating.

However.....
Since I installed it all emails generated by Zencart e.g. New Customer create account. Order details, payment confirmation etc have stopped I am getting nothing at all.

Is there anything in the post module which could cause this. I just thought I would check this first as nothing else has changed and Zencart was working fine up untill that point. Not blaming your product I might have done something wrong when I installed.
Help Please.

Johanne
The Horsemans Shop

jld:

Since I installed it all emails generated by Zencart e.g. New Customer create account. Order details, payment confirmation etc have stopped I am getting nothing at all.

Is there anything in the post module which could cause this.

No. Not a thing.

jld:

I just thought I would check this first as nothing else has changed and Zencart was working fine up untill that point. Not blaming your product I might have done something wrong when I installed.

I can't even think of anything that you could have done during the installation that would cause the problem either.

Have you checked your spam folder/filters?

Cheers
Rod

Hi Rob,

I have my Spam Junk Email turned off and manually add any junk email to it as I receive them.

Thanks for eliminating the Ozy Post as a potential problem. I might need to post my problem to the more general problem areas.

Thanks.
Johanne

Hi Rob,

Have just upgraded my store applied all patches & installed ozpost.

been into admin & enabled etc. (auspost image doesn't load? file properties_http://www.michellewardley.com/*admin_renamed*/DIR_WS_TEMPLATEStemplate_default/images/icons/ozpost_logo.jpg) where can i correct that code? (DIR_WS_TEMPLATEStemplate_default)

ozpost on checkout does not show at all

help!

cheers!