Master Categories ID's Keep Changing

When you say you tried it on a v1.3.9 site ... was this an upgraded site?

If so, do you know if all of the data had been cleaned to ensure that valid master_categories_id were being used?

The Product will follow the cPath or $current_category_id when navigating ...

When a Product is "lost", meaning that there isn't a cPath nor a $current_category_id for it to follow, then it uses the master_categories_id ...

If you turn off all SEO/rewrites and switch to the Classic Template, does it work better?

DrByte:

Notwithstanding all that you've already posted above in relation to your own symptoms on your own 1.3.8 store, I'm unable to pick out the exact steps to duplicate what you think is a bug, using a fresh clean brand new uncustomized install of v1.3.9f.
If you can provide the steps to exactly recreate the "bug" you allege, then we'll attempt to fix it.
As it stands now I'm having difficulty reproducing anything you describe, and as such can't confirm it as a bug.
nfallat,
Still waiting for you to post step-by-step details of how you allegedly see this problem in v1.3.9

Set up Categories:
Precious Formals is Category ID 1
Short is Category ID 3
HannahS is Category ID 4
Product ID 4 – Style HannahS 27561 was set up under Catetory 4.
Created links to category 1 and category 3.
It reset the Master ID to Category 1 – the lowest category ID that it is linked to.

On site it shows as Correct Master Category “HannahS – Test Mast Cat Problem”, at the top and in the Breadcrumb, for now (even though incorrect in Admin) but then whenever go to Store Manater/ Reset ALL Products Master Categories ID it usually resets on the site as well to the lowest ID# but it didn’t do in this case for some reason. Still shows on the site as “HannahS – Test mast Cat Problem”.
Then went to the product’s Multiple Categories Link Manager and reset to Category 4:

Then went back to Store manager Reset ALL Products Master Categories ID and it went back to Category 1 as Master ID:

It’s still staying correct (Category 4) on site for some reason (it’s usually messed up here to in all my other tests).

Tested Coupon code that is restricted to deny Category 4. The code does not work because on the site it shows the product as Category 4 – “HannahS – Test Mast Cat Problem”. This is consistent with my other tests in that it seems to look at the site, not the admin, for restricting coupons. (Although, again, my other tests resulted in the site being the wrong ID too.

Changed the restriction to Category 1 (which is what Admin shows as master) and the coupon still did not work (due to the Admin showing Category 1 as the Master. (Although this is inconsistent with my other tests – usually seems like coupon is looking at site, not admin.

In summary, the problem with this situation is:

1. Customer clicks on a product within a category but can’t navigate through that category by hitting Next button because they are taken to the wrong category – one of the linked categories – the one with the lowest ID
2. Coupon code restrictions are unstable.

Then went back to Store manager Reset ALL Products Master Categories ID and it went back to Category 1 as Master ID:

Understand ... every time you run the Reset ALL Products Master Categories ID ... ALL Products will have their lowest categories_id set as the master_categories_id ...

If you run the Reset master_categories_id it will do just that ... Reset ALL Products Master Categories ID ... it has no way to know what you want the master_categories_id to be and selects the lowest value of the categories_id found in the products_to_categories table ...

Then what is the point of linking? I thought reset master categories ID was supposed to just reset it at whatever category it was in.

And this has to be done periodically because otherwise after uploading EP spreadsheets of products, can't pull up a product by style number in admin.

And, like I said, the master ID is wrong so customers can't navigate through a category.

Here is a link to our main site on 1.3.8 but also tried it on 1.3.9 as a test and did same thing. Try going to HannahS under Designers and just click on the first product style 27461 and you will see you end up in the ######## category (which is under Shop By Style in category box). So customer can't navigate through just HannahS category.

http://www.findmypromdress.com/

nfallat:

Then what is the point of linking? I thought reset master categories ID was supposed to just reset it at whatever category it was in.

And this has to be done periodically because otherwise after uploading EP spreadsheets of products, can't pull up a product by style number in admin.

And, like I said, the master ID is wrong so customers can't navigate through a category.

Here is a link to our main site on 1.3.8 but also tried it on 1.3.9 as a test and did same thing. Try going to HannahS under Designers and just click on the first product style 27461 and you will see you end up in the ######## category (which is under Shop By Style in category box). So customer can't navigate through just HannahS category.

http://www.findmypromdress.com/

Tlhis system replaced ######## with #######. Trying this again.

The point of the Reset Master Categories ID is for those who import their data and do not set up master_categories_id ...

Or, for people who converted from other software that did not use master_categories_id ...

Or, for people who some how managed to destroy or other damage their master_categories_id ...

This method will fix the master_categories_id 100% when there are not Linked Products ...

If there are Linked Products, it can probably fix them to 50-90% depending on how things are set up ... then, the other categories can be fixed in the Multiple Link Categories Manager ... where you can pick individual Categories and reset all Products in that Category to use it as the master_categories_id ...

So say you import your Products with easy populate ...

First, you probably have no master_categories_id ...

So, you run the Rest Master Categories ID ...

But, you know that your 12 Designer Categories should be the master_categories_id ... so you go to the Multiple Link Categories Manager and reset those 12 Designers Categories to have the categories_id used as the master_categories_id ...

The bulk of the work is now done ...

If you find other Categories that have an issue, you add those to the list that need to be reset ...

Once done, you then run the Update Products Price Sorter ...

The point here is instead of editing 10,000 products you were able to fix this by utilizing these tools to get the bulk of the work done for you ...

Perhaps, once you fixed all of the master_categories_id and all were right ... you could figure out how to fix the Export/Import of Easy Populate so that they did not break in the future ...

I forgot to mention, I had also tried the reset by category in the Multiple Categories Links Manager with no success.

Can you point me to a zencart site that uses links?

I would like to see that it actually works properly somewhere.

I have tried everything to get this to work right and it does not work. This is a major problem and there must be others that have this same issue.

Thanks,
Nancy

Thank you so much for great efforts answer.

I have one question about the Link Manager.

For example.

I have a product : 'western dress 001' in this category structure: dress--femal dress--femal western dress

Which level of category should I select as the Master-category-id, the top one(ie,the dress) ,the middle one(the 'femal dress' or the bottom one(the 'femal western dress') when utilizing the Link Categories Manager ?

Thank you

Ajeh:

The point of the Reset Master Categories ID is for those who import their data and do not set up master_categories_id ...

Or, for people who converted from other software that did not use master_categories_id ...

Or, for people who some how managed to destroy or other damage their master_categories_id ...

This method will fix the master_categories_id 100% when there are not Linked Products ...

If there are Linked Products, it can probably fix them to 50-90% depending on how things are set up ... then, the other categories can be fixed in the Multiple Link Categories Manager ... where you can pick individual Categories and reset all Products in that Category to use it as the master_categories_id ...

So say you import your Products with easy populate ...

First, you probably have no master_categories_id ...

So, you run the Rest Master Categories ID ...

But, you know that your 12 Designer Categories should be the master_categories_id ... so you go to the Multiple Link Categories Manager and reset those 12 Designers Categories to have the categories_id used as the master_categories_id ...

The bulk of the work is now done ...

If you find other Categories that have an issue, you add those to the list that need to be reset ...

Once done, you then run the Update Products Price Sorter ...

The point here is instead of editing 10,000 products you were able to fix this by utilizing these tools to get the bulk of the work done for you ...

Perhaps, once you fixed all of the master_categories_id and all were right ... you could figure out how to fix the Export/Import of Easy Populate so that they did not break in the future ...

nfallat ... I don't think you are getting how this works ...

Let's say I have a database "with" master_categories_id and Linked Products and "all" are setup correctly ...

If I run the Reset Master Categories ID ...

ALL Products that are NOT Linked will be correct ...

SOME Products that ARE Linked will be correct ...

SOME Products that ARE Linked will be incorrect ...

The reason SOME Products that are Linked will be incorrect is because the LOWEST categories_id value in the products_to_categories table is used for the master_categories_id ...

SOMETIMES this lowest value will be the CORRECT categories_id for the master_categories_id and SOMETIMES this lowest value will be INCORRECT ...

For the Categories where the WRONG master_categories_id is set, then I can use the Multiple Link Categories Manager to RESET those Categories 1 by 1 to correct them ...

Then, I can EDIT individual Products to fix any that need a different selection of master_categories_id than these two previous methods can manage ...

Once your master_categories_id values are correct, do NOT run the Rest Master Categories ID, when you have Linked Products or you will have to start all over again to clean things up ...

You need to then find a way to have your export/import work with the master_categories_id so that this does not happen ...

NOTE: after fooling around to reset master_categories_id you always want to run the Update Products Price Sorter ...

mybiz9999:

I have one question about the Link Manager.

For example.

I have a product : 'western dress 001' in this category structure: dress--femal dress--femal western dress

Which level of category should I select as the Master-category-id, the top one(ie,the dress) ,the middle one(the 'femal dress' or the bottom one(the 'femal western dress') when utilizing the Link Categories Manager ?

The Master Categories ID is the immediate (bottom) Category that the Product is in ...

Hi Linda,

Thanks for all of the information. I think I understand now. It is exactly as I suspected. It resets to the lowest category ID#. The reason I was confused is because I kept getting the advice to fix the error by upgrading. But it's not an upgrade issue, it's simply a functionality issue within ZenCart. So thanks for clarifying that. Hopefully this will be addressed at some point to make it easier to have linked products.

I thought of handling this by creating a series of categories to hold temporarily for added Designer categories then creating categories with higher ID's for the Shop by Style and Color category sections (the ones linked to) so it would always reset to the designer category as the master.

However, this would cause those Shop by Style and Color categories to suffer a SEO hit (verified with my SEO guy) because of a URL change.

So I guess I will have to try to work within this system.

I have 2 more questions.

1. I think I already said doing the reset by category in the Multiple Categores Link Manager doesn't work. In the admin it shows as reset but on the site it does not recognize the reset. On the site the breadcrumb still shows the lower ID as the category. Wondering why the site does not reflect what is in the admin.

You said to then go product-by-products and edit to fix the ones still incorrect (a huge chore) but how can I do that in admin when the product shows in the admin as already reset to the correct ID (from doing the category reset)?

2. If I found the code (if any) for easy populate to upload the Master ID would this cause ZenCart to always use this ID as the master?

Thanks!
Nancy

There is nothing wrong with the Rest Master Categories ID ... it does exactly what it is suppose to do, that is to take the first record found in the products_to_categories table for the products_id and use the categories_id to set the master_categories_id ...

The problem is, on Linked Products, the lowest categories_id is used, and that may not be the "best" choice ...

If all the Products in categories_id 723 should use 723 as the master_categories_id but using the Rest Master Categories ID does not do this, then go to the Multiple Categories Link Manager and down at the bottom set all Products in Category for categories_id 723 to be the master_categories_id ...

Reset ALL Products in the selected Category to use the selected Category as the new Master Categories ID ...
Example: Resetting Category 22 would set ALL Products in Category 22 to use Category 22 as the Master Category ID

The EXAMPLE shows, entering 22 will change all Products that are Linked to categories_id will be set to the master_categories_id 22 ...

If you enter 723, all Products Linked to categories_id 723 will have the master_categories_id set to 723 ...

If you wanted each Designer Category to be the "Master Category" for their own Products, then you would enter each of the Designer Category categories_id and then those Products would be set to use that Designer's Category as its master_categories_id ...

But I tried that already. It resets it in the admin under multiple categories link manager, but on the website it still shows it in the wrong category.

See the link to this dress. In admin it is reset to be HannahS Short but on the site you will see it is in a Shop by Style category.
http://www.findmypromdress.com/hannah-s-27561-homecoming-dress-10821.html

And, please see my 2 questions from prior post.

Thanks,
Nancy

I have a site with the categories:

HARDWARE categories_id 1
|-- Mice categories_id 9
DVD categories_id 3
|-- Action categories_id 10

I have a Product products_id 12 in both categories_id 10 and categories_id 9 where the master_categories_id is 10 ...

When I am in the HARDWARE branch ... the Product products_id 12 will follow the categories_id 9 ...

When I am in the DVD branch ... the Product products_id 12 will follow the categories_id 10 ...

When I am navigating somewhere and the Product products_id 12 shows and there is no known cPath or categories_id to follow, then the master_categories_id is used of 10 ...

But, when I am navigating in a Category branch where the cPath or categories_id is know, even if the categories_id is not the master_categories_id ... it is going to follow the "current" Category Branch ...

So if I am in the Hardware ... Mice ... category and click on the Product products_id 12 ... I am staying in the Category Mice categories_id 9 ...

If I am in the DVD ... Action ... category and click on the Product products_id 12 ... I am staying in the Category Action categories_id 10 ...

If I am somewhere else, where the cPath is not know, such as a Search ... then when I click on the Product products_id 12 I will go to Category 10 which is the master_categories_id ...

With your SEO/rewrites ... I really cannot see what your Products are doing and if there is an issue or if you just are not understanding how this works ...