Session randomly expiring on final step of checkout process

NOTE: When making a new post, be sure to include relevant information such as:
What version of Zen Cart are you using? v151
Has your site been upgraded? When? From what version(s)? no
What version of PHP and MySQL is your server using? (See Admin->Tools->Server Info) PHP 5.3.27 MySQL 5.1.56
WHEN did the problem "start"? How does that compare with other events of your hosting company, changes you've made to your site files/addons, or your admin settings, etc? My host upgraded from PHP 5.2 to 5.3.27 and immediately, a few customers began complaining that their cart would timeout when they hit the final button to complete their order. The PHP upgrade was the only thing that has changed on my installation for several months.
Please post your site URL* so we can take a look at it. This is especially important if you're encountering display/layout problems, so the problem can be seen directly. laurelsstitchery.com
If you're encountering problems that could be related to your server or hosting company, include the name of your hosting company (not their URL). Dreamhost
HAVE YOU LOOKED IN THE FAQ AREA for answers to your question? (ie: a search for your error message or what you want to edit/change, etc) yes
Have you searched the FORUM for your error message or for answers to the question you're asking? yes, but the other threads are older and no one mentioned having upgraded PHP recently

As mentioned above, my host upgraded PHP from 5.2 to 5.3.27. Of course, this happened during my Thanksgiving sale, so the site was getting a lot of traffic. Within the hour, I received an email from a long-time customer complaining that the cart had timed out when she hit the final button to complete her order. After a couple of attempts, she was able to log back in and complete her order. I wrote it off to her walking away for a while and the normal time-out occurring.

On 11/30, I was entering my usual batch of manual orders. After a few completed correctly, I got the same session time-out error. A couple of times, I was able to log right back in and complete the order and a couple of times, I had to dump all cookies before I was able to log back in. Highly annoying.

The error is still occurring today. I'm convinced this is the fault of the PHP upgrade. I don't know where to start on getting it fixed. Any help would be appreciated.

Hoping someone will see this and help. Error still occurring. :(

Same exact problem here. Can't seem to debug it as there are no error in any of the logs. It also only happens to some session, but not all.

Replying again to see if anyone can help. :(

chibipaw:

Same exact problem here. Can't seem to debug it as there are no error in any of the logs. It also only happens to some session, but not all.

laurelsstitchery:

Replying again to see if anyone can help. :(

Hi. A couple of extra questions;
Have you contacted your host about this?
Have you any checkout mods (COWOA, FEC or the like) running in your store.
Does this issue happen in all browsers?
Any error logs being generated?

picandnix:

Hi. A couple of extra questions;
Have you contacted your host about this?
Have you any checkout mods (COWOA, FEC or the like) running in your store.
Does this issue happen in all browsers?
Any error logs being generated?

Checkout mods? Nope
Browsers? All that I've tried - Chrome, Safari, Firefox
Error logs? Nope

laurelsstitchery:

Checkout mods? Nope
Browsers? All that I've tried - Chrome, Safari, Firefox
Error logs? Nope

Missed a question in previous reply:
Haven't contacted host (dreamhost) because they're just going to disclaim responsibility and send me back here

Does it matter what payment method is used? What payment methods do you have enabled?

I'm "assuming" that when you say the timeout occurs at the last step of checkout, it's when the customer clicks the "Confirm Order" button from the checkout_confirmation page -- is that true?

Have you made any changes to the admin Configuration->Sessions settings? Posting your current values here might help.

lat9:

Does it matter what payment method is used? What payment methods do you have enabled?

I'm "assuming" that when you say the timeout occurs at the last step of checkout, it's when the customer clicks the "Confirm Order" button from the checkout_confirmation page -- is that true?

Have you made any changes to the admin Configuration->Sessions settings? Posting your current values here might help.

I've only experienced the error when using a credit card. Yes, it's when I click the confirm order button. It immediately goes to a timeout error page, but not every time. It's random. I'm using the built-in Authorizenet module for credit cards. I haven't made any changes to the sessions settings. The only change was the upgrade to PHP. I did a live chat with dreamhost today and their solution was to downgrade back to PHP5.2, which I have done and the error is no longer occurring. I can't stay on 5.2 forever though.

lat9:

Does it matter what payment method is used? What payment methods do you have enabled?

I'm "assuming" that when you say the timeout occurs at the last step of checkout, it's when the customer clicks the "Confirm Order" button from the checkout_confirmation page -- is that true?

Have you made any changes to the admin Configuration->Sessions settings? Posting your current values here might help.

Here are my Configuration->Sessions settings:
Session Directory /deleted/for/privacy/catalog/cache
Cookie Domain True
Force Cookie Use False
Check SSL Session ID True
Check User Agent False
Check IP Address False
Prevent Spider Sessions True
Recreate Session True
IP to Host Conversion Status true
Use root path for cookie path False
Add period prefix to cookie domain True

Did you have a reason for changing Check SSL Session ID to *True *from its *False *default?

lat9:

Did you have a reason for changing Check SSL Session ID to *True *from its *False *default?

Sorry that was a typo. It's actually false.

Any particular payment method? The timeout occurs when the customer clicks the "Confirm Order" button from the checkout_confirmation page, right?

You could try installing the Notifier Trace plugin. Once you install the plugin, get yourself to the checkout_confirmation page, enable the notifier-trace (via your admin's Configuration->Logging), click the button that results in the timeout and then disable the notifier-trace. That way, you've captured the events surrounding the issue. You could then PM the file to me and I'll see if I can glean anything from the information. I don't suggest posting it without reviewing the output, since there might be some "sensitive" information included.

lat9:

Any particular payment method? The timeout occurs when the customer clicks the "Confirm Order" button from the checkout_confirmation page, right?

You could try installing the Notifier Trace plugin. Once you install the plugin, get yourself to the checkout_confirmation page, enable the notifier-trace (via your admin's Configuration->Logging), click the button that results in the timeout and then disable the notifier-trace. That way, you've captured the events surrounding the issue. You could then PM the file to me and I'll see if I can glean anything from the information. I don't suggest posting it without reviewing the output, since there might be some "sensitive" information included.

I'm going to PM that file to you now. There's probably way more info than you need in it, but please let me know if you see something fixable. :) Thanks!

laurelsstitchery:

I'm going to PM that file to you now. There's probably way more info than you need in it, but please let me know if you see something fixable. :) Thanks!
The checkout sequence is **very **non-standard; on each checkout page transition, e.g. checkout_shipping to checkout_payment, there's a point where the main_page changes to index before the transition to checkout_payment. I'll create a test account to see what it's doing and let you know in a bit ...

Reporting on observations rather than solutions ... the transition from checkout_shipping to checkout_payment results in a "302 - Moved Temporarily" HTTP header where my test store (on localhost) results in a "302 - Found" header for the same transition. I don't know where the "302 - Moved Temporarily" is coming from, but I suspect that wherever it is is the root cause of the issue.

I'm replying to this thread because the issue continues to occur on my main site.

I have another domain that I use for testing. I've just installed the new 1.5.3 version of ZenCart. The only mods I've made to the base installation is making a clone of the flat rate shipping to accommodate my flat rate international shipping and I installed the Alysa Rounded template. I did a test transaction and got the same session timeout error. It always occurs when you click the final confirmation button to finalize the order and it's always on credit card payment. It never happens when you're using Paypal or check/money order payment. I'm using the stock Authorize.net AIM module. The MySQL version is 5.1.56-log and the PHP version is 5.4.11.

I don't know what else to do and the timeout on my main site is irritating my customers. I'm hoping someone can help me figure this out. Thanks!

Ok last night, I nuked the whole new site and this morning I reinstalled. The only changes I made to the base installation were setting up one test product, one payment method - Authorize.net AIM module, setting up my one tax zone and changing flat rate shipping from $5 to $4. I set up three customers and made three test credit card transactions. They all went fine. When I went to set up the fourth customer, I got the session timeout error when I hit the submit button at the bottom of the customer setup screen. When I went back to try the setup again, that customer was already setup. So, I got the timeout, but the setup went through.

Is there someone who could take a look at my server/version info and see if something there is causing this? I have my suspicions that something is wonky in the PHP setup on the server end, which is going to be a nightmare to get fixed (Dreamhost - not so dreamy sometimes).

I haven't really found any resolution to this problem. I've end up simply writing a FAQ on this issue. Mostly telling people to clear cache, clear cookies, restart the browser, and don't use chrome.
Seems to help, doesn't always work.

If you are still having troubles with this problem I believe I have discovered the issue and have posted more about it here in bug reports:

http://www.zen-cart.com/showthread.php?215961-Timeout-during-final-step-of-checkout-Solution

We are also on dreamhost, and it seems that their setup with php can add commas and dashes into the session_id. Hopefully this helps someone!