Can't install payment module or complete checkout - Times out

Hi there,
I'm trying to set up my zen cart install with paypal express checkout, I made a paypal account, and the next step in the tutorial is to install the module by clicking the install with button with the green cross on it. When I click on it the site just constantly loads, it never gives a time out error or anything, it just sits there and does nothing. The site is running on Apache on CentOS 6.3. I installed zen cart through zc_install and its running PHP Version 5.3.3 and MySQL version 5.1.69
Let me know if you need anything else. Thank you!

Oh, and I tried setting the directory to 777 to see if it was a permissions issue but it didn't help.

What other addons do you have installed??

http://www.zen-cart.com/content.php?124-blank-page

I have not installed any other addons. I found out I am not able to install any modules. In addition, when I go to confirm an order it in essence, "times out" without ever bringing me to a blank screen or any error page. It just sits there loading on the same page. This is the same thing that happens when I go to install a module. I reuploaded the entire zen cart set of files and set filezilla to override everything and it did not fix either issue. The only errors being generated in the logs refer to a time zone issue. I really, really appreciate your help on this.
Thank you!!

murphyslaw4267:

The only errors being generated in the logs refer to a time zone issue.
Can you share the exact errors?

[13-Jun-2013 13:31:39] PHP Warning: date(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are required to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/New_York' for 'EDT/-4.0/DST' instead in /storage/www/html/accuratelocksmith.us/zencart/includes/languages/english.php on line 16
[13-Jun-2013 13:31:39] PHP Warning: date(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are required to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/New_York' for 'EDT/-4.0/DST' instead in /storage/www/html/accuratelocksmith.us/zencart/includes/languages/english/email_extras.php on line 30
[13-Jun-2013 13:31:39] PHP Warning: date(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are required to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/New_York' for 'EDT/-4.0/DST' instead in /storage/www/html/accuratelocksmith.us/zencart/includes/init_includes/init_special_funcs.php on line 36
[13-Jun-2013 13:31:39] PHP Warning: date(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are required to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/New_York' for 'EDT/-4.0/DST' instead in /storage/www/html/accuratelocksmith.us/zencart/includes/counter.php on line 21
[13-Jun-2013 13:31:39] PHP Warning: mktime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are required to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/New_York' for 'EDT/-4.0/DST' instead in /storage/www/html/accuratelocksmith.us/zencart/includes/counter.php on line 53
[13-Jun-2013 13:31:39] PHP Warning: strftime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are required to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/New_York' for 'EDT/-4.0/DST' instead in /storage/www/html/accuratelocksmith.us/zencart/includes/counter.php on line 53
[13-Jun-2013 13:31:39] PHP Warning: date(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are required to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/New_York' for 'EDT/-4.0/DST' instead in /storage/www/html/accuratelocksmith.us/zencart/includes/functions/functions_lookups.php on line 897
[13-Jun-2013 13:31:39] PHP Warning: date(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are required to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/New_York' for 'EDT/-4.0/DST' instead in /storage/www/html/accuratelocksmith.us/zencart/includes/functions/functions_lookups.php on line 901
[13-Jun-2013 13:31:39] PHP Warning: date(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are required to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/New_York' for 'EDT/-4.0/DST' instead in /storage/www/html/accuratelocksmith.us/zencart/includes/functions/functions_lookups.php on line 897
[13-Jun-2013 13:31:39] PHP Warning: date(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are required to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/New_York' for 'EDT/-4.0/DST' instead in /storage/www/html/accuratelocksmith.us/zencart/includes/functions/functions_lookups.php on line 901
[13-Jun-2013 13:31:39] PHP Warning: date(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are required to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/New_York' for 'EDT/-4.0/DST' instead in /storage/www/html/accuratelocksmith.us/zencart/includes/functions/functions_lookups.php on line 897
[13-Jun-2013 13:31:39] PHP Warning: date(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are required to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/New_York' for 'EDT/-4.0/DST' instead in /storage/www/html/accuratelocksmith.us/zencart/includes/functions/functions_lookups.php on line 901
[13-Jun-2013 13:31:39] PHP Warning: strftime(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are required to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/New_York' for 'EDT/-4.0/DST' instead in /storage/www/html/accuratelocksmith.us/zencart/includes/modules/new_products.php on line 87
[13-Jun-2013 13:31:39] PHP Warning: date(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are required to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/New_York' for 'EDT/-4.0/DST' instead in /storage/www/html/accuratelocksmith.us/zencart/includes/functions/functions_lookups.php on line 928

murphyslaw4267:

[13-Jun-2013 13:31:39] PHP Warning: date(): It is not safe to rely on the system's timezone settings. You are required to use the date.timezone setting or the date_default_timezone_set() function. In case you used any of those methods and you are still getting this warning, you most likely misspelled the timezone identifier. We selected 'America/New_York' for 'EDT/-4.0/DST' instead ...
You should probably get your hosting company to make the appropriate change to the server's PHP configuration, else those warnings are just going to pile up endlessly.

murphyslaw4267:

in essence, "times out" without ever bringing me to a blank screen or any error page. It just sits there loading on the same page.
That's really unusual.
I could accept a brief delay if it were on the shipping page looking for shipping quotes, or at the end of checkout submitting payment details to an online service, and the server communications was slow. But that doesn't seem to be the case.

Well, its an unmanaged dedicated server that I run, so the issue may lie within the OS's config or some software package external to zencart. I edited the PHP config so that it has the correct time zone and it stopped producing error logs. I can have my host look at Zencart and my server in general, but its $175 an hour so I'd rather use that as a last resort. Can you think of any specific scenarios where Zencart had a similar issue due to something external?
Thank you again, I really appreciate your time.

When you're attempting to go through checkout, on which page does it freeze?
If you've gone through the part of selecting a payment method, which one had you selected?

In fact, a click-by-click walk-through of exactly how to recreate your symptoms would be helpful.

Again, this is very unusual. Can you perhaps give a list of what parameters were used when installing PHP? This behavior isn't typical of any common PHP installation.

Well...when you mentioned PHP configuration I originally set my memory limits to 4096 MB, slightly high, so I reduced them to 256 MB. Now the site is freezing when I try to access the admin area, and my wordpress install on the same machine is doing the same thing now, whether the initial problem and this are related I don't know, but clearly I have to work out this issue with my server first. I'll let you know what comes of this once I've done that. Thank you!

Ok, there was a network issue with TWC that was causing the most recent issue, however after my PHP memory change to 256M its still giving me issues. I add an item to the cart, I login with my credentials, I click on go to checkout, I select a shipping method, I click on continue checkout, right now it defaults to check/money order, so I click on continue checkout again, and then I click on confirm the order and that's when it hangs/freezes. The order shows up in the admin area as a pending order but it just says Waiting for https://www.accuratelocksmith.us at the bottom left of chrome, and I left it for ~10 minutes and there was no change. I've tried the same steps with IE10, and it does the same thing. Thank you!

At the current point in time, you have a DNS issue. The specified name servers for your domain are timing out. ( NS1.SERVERHOBBYISTDEDICATED.COM & NS2.SERVERHOBBYISTDEDICATED.COM).

Until/unless these servers can be reached there is no way for your domain to resolve, and if my suspicions are correct, you'll find any and all access currently possible will slowly dwindle to nothing (unless the issue is rectified). Your domain appears to be existing based on DNS cached data alone.

Cheers
Rod

I would suggest that you get your server manager/team to inspect your PHP configuration and set it to conventional values, ie: values typical for a production webserver.
Also have them inspect the server's PHP error logs to determine what is causing segfaults, if any, and resolve them.

RodG:

At the current point in time, you have a DNS issue.

Update: It is now resolving fine.

Is this or was this related to your timeout problems? Maybe, maybe not. I'd say more likely than unlikely, but that's little more than a guess.

If/when your timeouts re-occur, then performing a DNS check at that time will confirm or refute this possibility.

Meanwhile, as always, DrByte has given excellent advice in regards to your PHP settings. Your server manager/team will know the optimum values to use for their systems (Well, that's the theory).

Cheers
Rod

I rebooted the machine, and BIND which runs my domains DNS failed to start automatically on boot so I started it manually. Unfortunately that didn't fix the issue. I am the server manager. The server's CPU (Xeon E3-1270v2) and memory (16GB) are barely getting used, so I don't think its a resource issue. I forgot to mention that I migrated the site from another server to this server, however I never did test to see if I could install any modules or complete any orders on the original server. When I migrated the site I tried to follow the zencart guide as best I could (http://www.zen-cart.com/content.php?142-i-want-to-move-my-zen-cart-installation-to-another-host-or-a-different-server) but do you know of any settings that may cause the software to be looking at the old server, or still set for the old server?

Sounds very much like the server's LAMP stack configuration is all messed up and isn't ready for traditional webserver operation. I'd be spending my time fixing that, especially if this is intended to be a public-facing webserver.

Well, everything is working fine now. I'm not sure what the change was, I let my host know about it and they asked a follow up question and I tested it to make sure it was still having issues and all of a sudden it was working great. My host claimed they didn't do anything but I'm not sure, I didn't make any changes. Anyway, I'm really happy it is working now and I really appreciate all your guys' time, espcially you DrByte.
Thank you!