"your session has expired" when adding to cart

Hello,

This is my first post and I hope it is in the right place.

I have a fresh install of version 1.3.9

My problem is with the checkout process...

A new customer comes to the site (someone who has never logged in or signed up before) they add products to their cart, they go to checkout and are told "your session has expired".

A log in form is given below this message.

No sign up form at all..

I feel that this will cause a very high bailout rate...

How do I make it so that this does not happen? Is it possible for people to checkout without an account with zencart as it is with osc and oscmax?

If not, how do I make it so new customers are presented with a signup form instead of this confusing message about their session expiring?

Are there any one page checkout mods that work with v1.3.9?

A new customer comes to the site (someone who has never logged in or signed up before) they add products to their cart, they go to checkout and are told "your session has expired".

You have something misconfigured if you get that error. Do a search for "whoops".

What you are reporting is not standard behavior. There will not be a "session expired" message, nor will the cart be emptied unless the customer has been inactive (away from the computer or from the store site) for 24 minutes.
When a not-logged-in customer goes to checkout, they should get a request to login or register.
There are several cart and checkout mods, like Keep Cart, COWOA or Fast & Easy Checkout (look in Free Addons).

Thanks for the replies.

I cannot create an account either... well I can, but the password does not work, resetting password sends another password that does not work.

Something has obviously gone wrong somewhere.

The only mod I installed was a drop on top of seo urls... it does not work right. Product pages redirect ok but not new products and all products pages (I can probably fix this in .htaccess, not looked yet).

Could this be related?

Any ideas what could be causing the password not to work (both password set by customer and password sent by lost password tool).

Turn off the URL rewriter for starters, and see if things work correctly. They are not needed for search engines anyway, only for making pretty links for people to post or read, if that is actually a factor for your business. As you have seen, they can hurt you if not configured correctly.

Yes, it is turned off (was before).

I have tested this in chrome and IE and get the same
problem.

Not found and help here

https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=312

What is the URL of your site where this unusual problem is allegedly taking place?