Virtual product setup question regarding shipping

I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction here.

This is a 1.3.9h setup that I've taken on -- so I'm not sure what the original developer did or why. Nor does my client.

We sell a mix of real products and virtual (downloadable PDF files). Zone rates (based on cart value) are set for the real products and there should be no shipping costs for the pdf files.

My question regards the setup of the PDF file products: Each pdf file product is set up like a regular shippable product with these values:

Product is Virtual: No
Always Free Shipping: No, Normal Shipping Rules

Yet, for some reason, shipping is not charged for these products. How can that be?

Normally I'd say leave it alone - -it's working -- but sometimes the cart does charge shipping on downloads. So I guess I need to figure out what's happening and fix it.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

John

Downloadable Products "know" that they are free shipping based on the Attribute having the filename on it ...

It the Attribute is there, but not the filename, then it is like having and Attribute for the Color Red rather than for Download PDF abc123.pdf ...

Also, check the filename is on the server, in either the Attributes Controller or the Download Manager to ensure that you see a green dot next to the filename ...

When you have the issue of Free Shipping not working on a Downloadable Product ... do you notice if there is a particular Product that this is happening with?

Thanks for the explaination.

There were 6 downloads in the order. All had a filename with a green dot when I checked the in the Attributes controller. One had a rather odd name (lots of dots in it) -- maybe that's an issue?

I'm told it happens infrequently, but we'll keep an eye on it and see if we can track it back to a specific product.

John

I would try to stick to filenames without special characters and just use: alphanumeric_filename.ext

This would avoid a lot of issues ...

Let us know if you can find a pattern to reproduce this issue and do recheck the Product settings on your Download Products are:

Product is Virtual: No
Always Free Shipping: No, Normal Shipping Rules