Who's Online showing multiple entries for my own IP

Could you go to the Tools ... Developers Tool Kit ... and in the bottom input box type:
whos_online.php

select Admin and click SEARCH ...

What comes up on the line containing:
version $Id

This is what is there:

Line #19 : // $Id: whos_online.php 2663 2005-12-24 02:28:51Z ajeh $

And this is against version

Line #6 : * @version $Id: whos_online.php 15576 2010-02-23 16:01:34Z ajeh $

To amuse me ... could you backup your copy of the file:
/admin/whos_online.php

and download v1.3.8f from our Home page and load that version to your /admin and see if it changes the problems that you are having ... :smile:

I will do this although I upgraded to 1.3.9f..

Do you mean 1.3.8f or 1.3.9f? Before I make matters worse...

I just did that with 1.3.9f and its still the same

All I can say is, from the image you provided, that the presence of red symbols next to each session id (instead of green symbols) usually indicates a problem with SuHosin being used on the server.

I suppose its also possible that you simply have a configuration problem which leads to sessions not being stored correctly.

Vger

Something that may be of interest is that while I was working in my admin this morning I clicked on 'Online Catalog' within the admin area which opened a new window. However many times I clicked around and went to the home page and refreshed that page the count only showed me as 1 guest online, which is what one would expect. So, it is only when one visits the site by typing in the url that the count changes when the page is refreshed.

I stopped looking at this problem previously and would have left it altogether had it not been for someone else having the same problem which renewed my interest.

As the folks at Zen cannot see or replicate this error despite me seeing the problem on 2 different computers, my friend in Canada also seeing what I am seeing and the other new zenner, I am going to let this go.

If this was a Host problem they wont help when it comes to zen support in any event, besides which I wouldnt know what to say to them.

Hopefully, one of these days there will be so many visitors to my store the actual count wont matter. But this is disturbing in that the Zen people can't come up with a solution.

But this is disturbing in that the Zen people can't come up with a solution.

If they cannot replicate the problem then how can they come up with a solution? Being able to replicate a problem is the very first step necessary to find a solution. Your problem is either:

1. With changes made to your site.

2. The hosting company is using SuHosin.

If this was a Host problem they wont help when it comes to zen support in any event, besides which I wouldnt know what to say to them.

If you look at Tools --> Server Info in your Zen Cart admin panel that page will tell you if SuHosin is installed. From the image I saw every single entry from the same ip address had a red circle next to it when it should have been green (which could indicate SuHosin in use), and each entry had a different session id (which indicates that your site could not maintain a session).

Incidentally I was looking at a site today which used a new World Pay module, and as part of this module it activated encrypted session ids if Suhosin was available on the server but encrypted session ids was turned off in SuHosin.

You see - there are just so many possible explanations for what could be happening on your site that it becomes just guesswork trying to pin it down.

Vger

Thanks for your message.

1. Tools - Server Info. I couldnt find any reference to Suhosin. I copied the entire page to a word document and did a word search there and still found no reference to Suhosin.

2. I went to my store, guest count 1. I refreshed the page, guest count 2. I then added an item to the shopping cart.

3. Admin - Who's online shows 1 guest with red indicator and 1 guest with green indicator.

According to the legend on that page it says that red = active - no cart and green = active cart. So, when you saw me with 4 red indicators it signified that I was active with no carts.

After a time these red indicators change to the dull pink which signifies - inactive no cart

After 9 minutes it clears the who's online AFTER I have left the store.

Sessions are normally stored in the database and this is governed by the MySQL "Garbage Clean Up" utility, which would (normally) clear fully inactive sessions after 23 to 24 minutes of absence from the site. If yours is clearing within 9 minutes then that is unusual.

Are you storing sessions in 'files' or the 'db'? See below an excerpt from a Zen cart configure.php file:

define('USE_PCONNECT', 'false');
define('STORE_SESSIONS', 'db');
// use 'db' for best support, or '' for file-based storage

Please check both your configure.php files and report back what they say for session storage.

Vger

As per Ajeh's post #29 I checked both files last night.

They both reflect as your post indicates that they should.

define('USE_PCONNECT', 'false');
define('STORE_SESSIONS', 'db');
// use 'db' for best support, or '' for file-based storage

Okay, I have to admit that I'm out of ideas. You can, if you wish, PM me your email address and I'll ask you then to send me the Server Info file you saved, to see if there's anything I can pick out from that.

Vger

I've sent you a PM with my details.
Thanks

I am experiencing the same problem with my newly created site. Please let me know if this issue has been resolved and how.

Thanks!

No it hasn't been resolved and I've seen a number of new stores with the same problem. I've decided to ignore it altogether as it appears that they (whoever tried to assist) were unable to recreate the problem.
Can someone please tell me that if you offer digital downloads that the download folder must be moved to the 'root' folder and the config files changed to reflect this. The person who installed my store also deleted the 'pub' folder. It would be interesting to find out if this was the cause of the problem.

The person who installed my store also deleted the 'pub' folder. It would be interesting to find out if this was the cause of the problem.

If you are using "Download by redirect" then it would most certainly be the cause of the download problem. With "Download by redirect" the downloadable files are placed inside the 'downloads' folder, but are served up via Symbolic Links from the 'pub' folder - so the person who installed your store and deleted the 'pub' folder would have broken the whole system.

If "Download by redirect" is not used then the files are served directly from the 'downloads' folder.

Vger

The pub folder was removed for security reasons.
https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=280

From FAQ:

Additionally, IF you have no intentions of supporting downloadable products or music-media products, you can also remove these folders:

• /download
• /media
• /pub
  (And you'll need to go to your Admin->Configuration->Attribute Settings->Enable Downloads, and set it to False to turn off the warning message about the missing download folder) In the future, if you choose to add downloadable products to your site or music-products, you will want to re-upload these appropriate folders (and their contents) to your server again, and assign appropriate permissions

So the Who's Online script has a bug and no one from Zen Cart is trying to resolve it? I can provide them the steps to reproduce the issue if they just contact me...

re., downloads - I was responding to the post by pennilane who asked:

Can someone please tell me that if you offer digital downloads that the download folder must be moved to the 'root' folder and the config files changed to reflect this. The person who installed my store also deleted the 'pub' folder. It would be interesting to find out if this was the cause of the problem.

This implied (to me at least) that they were using digital downloads. Hence my answer, but I also did say.

If "Download by redirect" is not used then the files are served directly from the 'downloads' folder.

With regard to the multiple sessions from the same person, this may or may not be a bug in Zen Cart - but I tend to think that it's not a bug. Which ISP are you using to connect to the Internet?

If you are using AOL then that would account for the multiple sessions problem, as AOL cannot follow a session to save its life. Before delivering up a web page to you AOL caches it on its servers, but it caches each element of a page separately on different servers in different locations, and that can mean 20-30 items being cached by AOL for every page shown - each one generating a session.

I have shown this to be correct by viewing what AOL does when it visits a site by looking at the web stats.

Vger