Order, downloads not working - Very frustrated

Hi,

First let me say thanks to the people who spend their time working on Zencart and helping people on this forum. I understand that I'm not paying for anything so I don't really have any complaints. But I was excited about using Zencart and I'm really frustrated that I can't get it to work.

I don't know a lot about computers. I can do some HTML and FTP is not a problem. I managed to install Zencart and a theme and it get it up and running with products. But most of the tutorials and things I've read have only added to my confusion and headaches.

Here's what I got:

• Zencart v1.3.9h
• Godaddy Linux hosting

I don't want to give the URL of my site because I don't want my customers and/or hackers to google the name and find out that I am having problems. I have been doing business online for years and it's my only source of income. I can't risk any problems or credibility issues.

Here are the problems:

1. When new customers sign up, they don't receive the welcome email. I get an email in my inbox saying the email was "administratively rejected" for "bad data."

2. When customers make an order the checkout works fine through PayPal, but I am never notified of the order. I don't get an email. It doesn't show up in the orders section of admin panel. The payment shows up in PayPal but that doesn't help since it just says "Order" without any description.

3. When customers purchase an instant download everything goes through, they are returned to my store after paying via PayPal, but they never get the download or any info of how to retrieve it, and I don't know how to deliver it. I linked the product attribute to the file, but IDK.

If you can help at all please do. I would hate to lose all my work and the great looking store I've put together and go back to my old HTML format with paypal shopping cart.

Thanks!

If your store is suddenly not getting order-completion notices from PayPal, then something's breaking the communication incoming to your store from PayPal's servers. That's a very common problem which occurs with the IPN module, and is avoided completely when using Express Checkout instead.
Without the completed payment info, the order isn't stored in your store, and no download link is generated, and no email is sent.

Also, if you're having constant problems with emails being sent, be advised that GoDaddy regularly makes changes to their server setups and breaks stores in the process. They recently did email changes that caused a lot of grief to many merchants. Ask their tech support for the correct SMTP settings to use on your store.

Thanks.

I don't know if it's sudden or not. I've NEVER seen the orders in the admin panel since I installed ZenCart.

I don't know what SMTP settings are or how to change them, but I will contact GoDaddy.

Thanks

Zen cart is proving to be more trouble than it's worth. I don't have the time to go through all this. I have a business to run. I'm going to go with another format. Thanks all who looked.

LOL. Your host is probably the problem, as thousands before you have found out the hard way.

But, if your mind is made up and you think it's worth spending all kinds of time rebuilding all over again in something else instead of making a couple small settings changes, enjoy the journey.