Set up SSL certificate through Media Temple & now I get Security Warnings everywhere

Basically my cart was working fine. I went in and set up my SSL certificate through Media Temple and now I can't make any changes any where. If I go into admin and say want to change anything in any category to anything I get a pop up window that says "Security Warning Although this page is encrypted, the information you have entered is to be sent over an unencrypted connection and could easily be read by a third party." Then it completely removes whatever I just changed and takes it to a blank item. If I go into shop and click on add to cart I get the same security warning. If I click to continue it goes to a blank page. Please someone help me with this. I just don't know where to look any more. I changed all security settings in both configure.php files. I'm at a loss.

Thanks

Also if I go through my hosting company Media Temple to make changes it won't let me edit anything. It allows me to click on something but then after saying save changes it just takes it back to the way it was. So trying to change permissions on the configure file and it won't let me.

Problems like this are best solved with the help of your Hoster.

I went through them initially and then again just now and they said it is a zen cart issue. Evidently I've done something wrong. I removed the extra spaces on my configure file and now when you click on "add to cart" it goes to the your cart is empty page. So it's not actually adding anything to the cart. Then still have the encryption problem.

Your site clearly has a bad SSL configuration.
Could be several things wrong, including but not limited to, using .htaccess rewrite rules to create SSL usage, using some sort of frame forwarding, or just a bad install of the SSL certificate. And maybe wrong settings in your configure.php files.

If it were working properly, the login/create-account/checkout forms would automatically point to an https: address and not http: addresses. Zen Cart normally does the flip automatically, but can only do it if your server is properly configured and you've given it the right information in your configure.php files.

As far as Zen Cart setup is concerned, this FAQ covers the details: https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=14
Everything else is between you and your hosting company.

I found the one error on the forum with regards to my admin page not allowing me to change anything and giving me the encryption errors. My last problem I still just can't find. When you go into my cart and click on an item to purchase and then click on add to cart it goes directly to the page that says your shopping cart is empty. Can we give me some thoughts as to what thats about?
Thanks
justspice.org

OK I'm narrowing this down now. I'm finding that two things if I click on something that takes me to more info (product info page) and then from there click on "add to cart" I get the encryption error and clicking continue adds nothing to my cart just gives me an empty cart. However, if I select an item that does not take me to the "product info page" and I just click on "buy now" button from the "product list" page I get no error and it adds it to my cart. So obviously something to do with "product info"page/ buttons ?????????Please help I just don't even know where to look any more.

squaremeadows:

When you go into my cart and click on an item to purchase and then click on add to cart it goes directly to the page that says your shopping cart is empty. Can we give me some thoughts as to what thats about?
That's a result of a Sessions problem, which is very likely related to your SSL problem.

If it was working fine before enabling SSL, then your session problems are clearly related to bad SSL.

Either completely remove SSL support and sort out your sessions issues, or sort out your SSL issues first, and then see if your session problems persist.

squaremeadows:

OK I'm narrowing this down now. I'm finding that two things if I click on something that takes me to more info (product info page) and then from there click on "add to cart" I get the encryption error and clicking continue adds nothing to my cart just gives me an empty cart. However, if I select an item that does not take me to the "product info page" and I just click on "buy now" button from the "product list" page I get no error and it adds it to my cart. So obviously something to do with "product info"page/ buttons ?????????Please help I just don't even know where to look any more.

You're spending a lot of time needlessly.

Here's the proof:
a) The login links on your page point to an http: address, when they should be https: addresses. If you've built them into your template by hard-coding them then you'll have to manually change them. Normally Zen Cart handles those links itself and makes them https: addresses automatically, but either your custom template is doing its own thing, or something's amuck in your server config causing Zen Cart to not use https: addresses when it's supposed to. That's all handled by the ENABLE_SSL = 'true', as per the FAQ article I already pointed you to.

b) click on your login link or your create-account link. If you watch quickly you'll see that since your template has non-SSL URLs for these, your browser goes to the http: URL first, and then switches itself to https: URL on its own. This is a good thing.
But the bad part is that internally Zen Cart is still drawing http: URLs for your forms ... because either you've got the configuration wrong in the configure.php files, contrary to the FAQ article I pointed you to, or your server's configuration is preventing Zen Cart from validating that SSL is available, and thus it's building non-SSL URLs.
Look for yourself. Go to the login page. Use your browser's menu to View Source. Search the source page for <form and you'll see a few forms ... the one that has an action that ends in main_page=login should start with https: ... but it doesn't.
If your server were working right, it would be https: automatically.

Go fix the SSL issues on your server, and Zen Cart will work fine for you.

Can you put me on the correct path to sort out the sessions issue. Not sure where to start with that. Thanks

Sure: Log a ticket with your hosting company to fix the SSL and sessions issues.

In the meantime, set ENABLE_SSL to 'false' in your configure.php files and prove whether add-to-cart works properly or not. As I said already, if add to cart works without SSL turned on, then your problems are all clearly connected to your SSL problem.

I did that trying to test it out. Several hours ago actually and then again just now. Here's my includes/configure top code

// Define the webserver and path parameters

define('HTTP_SERVER', 'http://www.justspice.org');

define('HTTPS_SERVER', 'https://www.justspice.org');

define('ENABLE_SSL', 'false');

// NOTE: be sure to leave the trailing '/' at the end of these lines if you make changes!

// * DIR_WS_* = Webserver directories (virtual/URL)

// these paths are relative to top of your webspace ... (ie: under the public_html or httpdocs folder)

define('DIR_WS_CATALOG', '/');

define('DIR_WS_HTTPS_CATALOG', '/');

This is the top of my admin/includes/configure
define('HTTP_SERVER', 'https://www.justspice.org');
define('HTTPS_SERVER', 'https://www.justspice.org');
define('HTTP_CATALOG_SERVER', 'https://justspice.org');
define('HTTPS_CATALOG_SERVER', 'https://justspice.org');

// secure webserver for catalog module and/or admin areas?
define('ENABLE_SSL_CATALOG', 'false');
define('ENABLE_SSL_ADMIN', 'false');

I'm afraid I ask them to fix this and they tell me it's an issue with zen cart and they don't support that. So i'm really in a pickle here.
I will look at pHp files for the http vs https. I guess that's the next step. I really do think the guy last night with Media Temple changed something that I'm not finding when he was redirecting things and renaming things. Just need help in finding it since that aren't going to help me.

So is the above ok?

The above looks fine.

Did he do something in .htaccess files, such as redirects between http and https addresses? What happens if you rename the .htaccess file in your main Zen Cart folder to htaccess_bak?
Whatever he's done is making your http: URLs be served over https: ... which is definitely wrong, and is an amateur cheater's method of server configuration. Very sloppy.

so I don't change the wrong one do you mean the one located under the admin folder or includes?

Neither.
The one in the same folder AS your admin and includes folders.

And if there isn't one, then you really need to smack your tech support guy around and get him to fix it ... or make him beg his supervisor to fix what he broke.

Your SSL Cert would be appear to working correctly but now all pages are using 'https' - which is not good. This is a result of redirection setup in the .htaccess file DrByte was telling you about. The redirection needs to be removed as not all pages use 'https' connection; nor should they.

OK I just got up and am going to dig into this again. Thanks for alll you guys are doing trying to diagnose this. I'm on hold to Media Temple and will try and get them to take the redirect off and put it back to where it was before their tech guy touched it. Please don't go away now. I just have to get this working this morning. I have three huge Christmas shows this weekend and tons of inventory. Won't do me any good if no one can shop.
Also I went in and changed the .htaccess file in the admin/includes folder to the above htaccess_bak per DrByte (doing it in Dreamweaver) it asked me if I wanted to scan and update links. I'm really nervous about going in and updating links etc. right now. Should I do that and see what happens?

So host took off redirect. They had added a htaccess to the main folder which forced the https. and it's working so now I'm assuming I need to go back in and change the false to "true" in the configure files?

DrByte and Rob,
I can't thank you enough here. He not only added a htaccess file in the main zen folder but also under the admin/includes. So taken off. At any rate I'm so burned from 20 hours of staring at this screen trying to fix this I just want verification that in order now to insure I have my SSL working on my cart (cause right now all pages come up http as opposed to https) I need to change those two configure.php pages to "true" on enable ssl? I just can't think any more so please just verify that for me and anything else you feel I've missed here.

Thanks again so much.

squaremeadows:

So host took off redirect. They had added a htaccess to the main folder which forced the https. and it's working so now I'm assuming I need to go back in and change the false to "true" in the configure files?
That is correct.

Also I went in and changed the .htaccess file in the admin/includes folder to the above htaccess_bak per DrByte (doing it in Dreamweaver) it asked me if I wanted to scan and update links. I'm really nervous about going in and updating links etc. right now. Should I do that and see what happens?
Don't use Dreamweaver so not sure why it would ask such a question. In this case though, you could delete the one there now, if there is some confusion about it, and re-upload the default one.