Products disappearing in shopping cart

Hello everyone, this is my first post here.

I got problem on my website. When I add products to cart everything works just fine.

Here comes the problem: when I click my starting page link, Zen-Cart starts new session for some reason and generates me new 'zenid'. This will cause an empty shopping cart.

I'm using Zen-Cart 1.3.9D.

I'm having a similar problem.. if you add something to my cart it looks like it works but then when the page refreshes it says "Your Shopping Cart is empty." :shocking: and that's when I cry.. lol.

I have tried almost everything with this...I even uploaded all the Zen-Cart files again but it didn't help.

I have noticed that my site is not the only one with this problem. I visited in some other Zen-Cart shops and some of them have same problem. When you add something to cart it works but in some point it is starting a new session and site generates you new zenid.

I hope you understand what I mean ;)

I wonder if it's something you either have to turn on or install separately like a mod? I didn't see it in the install manual but hey I'm blond it could have been anywhere in there.

are you adding items to the cart as a customer who is logged in? or as a non-logged in visitor?

Are you leaving long periods of time between adding items to the cart and then going to the home page?

Is this happening on a bought/custom template or does this happen even to the green standard template?

do you have an URLs we can look at and test?

Have i asked enough questions? lol

do you have cookies enabled in your browser?
does ZENID appear all the time in the URL on every page click?

See i have just logged into one of my test sites that i have not touched for months.. and the items i left in my cart are still there... as it is supposed to be.. and thats a 1.3.9a site manually upgraded to 1.3.9d

We recently upgraded a client to 1.3.9d from 1.3.8a. His website is very popular so we are getting a half dozen reports of this issue per day. The customer will add a product to their cart and then when they add another product, it will appear in their cart under a new session (this is confirmed by checking whose online). They will only be able to see the products added under the first session.

However, often if they go back to the product's page that isn't showing in their cart, it will switch back to the other session but you can never view those products in the cart (clicking the shopping cart takes you back to the other session).

The problem doesn't happen consistently as we are still getting many orders, but the reports cannot be denied.

We fixed the init_sessions.php bug in 1.3.9d and made sure the cache URL in the admin config is set properly, however we are using the database to store sessions anyways.

Telling customers to open and close the browser does not always work and obviously isn't a viable solution as we cannot be there to tell every customer to try this.

We ARE using Simple SEO URLs.

And if you turn OFF the url-rewrites ... ?

DrByte:

And if you turn OFF the url-rewrites ... ?
This is a live site, so we can't do that. I did merge the html_output.php file as per the instructions for SSU and 1.3.9d.

Are others reporting the same issue without using SEO URLs?

I can't replicate the problem with the URL you sent me by PM.
5 times I added something to my cart, and every one got added to the cart fine. Tested in Safari on Mac and Firefox on Mac. Both latest versions.
I do notice that you've got tons of addons and customizations installed, including a minifying tool and lots of ajax.

DrByte:

I can't replicate the problem with the URL you sent me by PM.
5 times I added something to my cart, and every one got added to the cart fine. Tested in Safari on Mac and Firefox on Mac. Both latest versions.
I do notice that you've got tons of addons and customizations installed, including a minifying tool and lots of ajax.
Yes, there are many customizations but none affect the sessions except for SSU. I've just emailed that author (yellow1912) to see if he has had similar reports. I'll keep this thread updated.

mine is https://www.yours-by-design.com

I have "force cookies" on but it is still doing it...

could this be the problem? This is in the description of the product.. it's supposed to be paypal's cart button.. but I think it may be psychotic... LOL.. I tried deleting it but it was worse....

<form target="paypal" action="https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr" method="post">
<input type="hidden" name="cmd" value="_s-xclick">
<input type="hidden" name="hosted_button_id" value="AXMSWPPXHWRM8">
<table>
<tr><td><input type="hidden" name="on0" value="11 oz white">11 oz white</td></tr><tr><td><select name="os0">
	<option value="1 Photo and Text">1 Photo and Text $13.00</option>
	<option value="2 Photos and Text">2 Photos and Text $14.00</option>
	<option value="3 Photos and Text">3 Photos and Text $15.00</option>
	<option value="4 Photos and Text">4 Photos and Text $16.00</option>
	<option value="5 Photos and Text">5 Photos and Text $17.00</option>
</select> </td></tr>
<tr><td><input type="hidden" name="on1" value="Enter Your Personalized Text">Enter Your Personalized Text</td></tr><tr><td><input type="text" name="os1" maxlength="60"></td></tr>
</table>
<input type="hidden" name="currency_code" value="USD">
<input type="image" src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/btn/btn_cart_LG.gif" border="0" name="submit" alt="PayPal - The safer, easier way to pay online!">
<img alt="" border="0" src="https://www.paypal.com/en_US/i/scr/pixel.gif" width="1" height="1">
</form>

That's a PayPal-Hosted-Button, and is NOT generated by Zen Cart.

Zen Cart is NOT designed to work with "Paypal hosted buttons", since that turns PayPal into your shopping cart program, completely bypassing Zen Cart.
If you've got embedded "paypal hosted buttons" in your products, then NATURALLY Zen Cart will never see products purchased via those buttons.

I've seen issues where an incorrectly formatted XHTML form will not pass the expected information to the shopping cart page.

That may help some people but has nothing to do with ZC 1.3.9d.

I got it work by changing my home page links. Previously my home page link code was:

<a href="' . HTTP_SERVER . DIR_WS_CATALOG '">Home page</a>

and this made home page links look like http://example.com. This is the default code in Zen-Cart.

I changed my home page link code to following:

<a href="' . HTTP_SERVER . DIR_WS_CATALOG . 'index.php?mainpage=&zenid=' . $_REQUEST['zenid'] . '">Home page</a>

and that made my home page link look like http://example.com/index.php?main_page=&zenid=1234567890asdf.

This causes new problem which is not relevant. If user's first click at my shop is "Home page", Zen-cart won't generate zenid properly. However everything works just fine but it might cause problems with some mods, I don't know. This is not big problem because I don't think anyone would have a reason to click first my home page link.

This is happening only when customer is non-logged visitor. I don't have any mods turned on and I have even turned my SEO off.

Apparently this won't help others but it worked for me.

numinix:

Yes, there are many customizations but none affect the sessions except for SSU. I've just emailed that author (yellow1912) to see if he has had similar reports. I'll keep this thread updated.
The author has released a new version but states that this issue happens regardless of SSU.
The main issue is why would Zen Cart create a second session for the same IP if a live session still exists?

Should we try enabling the "Check IP Address" feature?

Ok, further testing while the bug was occurring found that disabling SSU resolved the issue. However, all of our SEO work requires this module so we need to look to the author to fix the problem.

Are others who are experiencing this problem also using Simple SEO URLs or some other SEO URLs script? Does disabling the script help?

k, could you also try this as a potential fix

in the extra_configures directory,
create a file called override_cookie_path.php
that contains

<?php
define('CUSTOM_COOKIE_PATH', '/');

and try again with SSU on

your store is setting two separate cookies, one with the store URL, and one with the store path and one with the store path followed by SSU URI like -c-46

one example, from the URL you shared privately, which sets two separate cookies, is this: 'http://www.domain_name.com/store/rubik-s-cube-c-19_38/rubik-s-cube-p-201