Ability to Check Out with 0 Units (stock)

Hello All -

I have been searching for the answer for about 4 days on this forum (and others) and I am finally waiving the white flag and posting. I have found a lot of threads about the opposite of my issue, but nothing on mine:

I need to be able to have orders placed, even when there is 0 stock showing/available. I originally thought it was something as simple as changing admin -> Config - > Stock and making "Allow Checkout" to "true". I have done that, but it still will not allow checkout. I am benginning to think it may be something with the template code, as I feel like I have tried every setting.

We do not do live stock levels and dropship a lot, so I really don't want anything to do with stock levels.

Here is what I have set:

Admin -> Config -> Stock

Check stock level false
Subtract stock false
Allow Checkout true
Mark product out of stock ****
Stock Re-order level 0
Products status in Catalog when out of stock should be set to 1
Show Sold Out Image in place of Add to Cart 0
Product Quantity Decimals 0
Show Shopping Cart - Delete Checkboxes or Delete Button 3
Show Shopping Cart - Update Cart Button Location 3
Show New Products on empty Shopping Cart Page 1
Show Featured Products on empty Shopping Cart Page 2
Show Special Products on empty Shopping Cart Page 3
Show Upcoming Products on empty Shopping Cart Page 4
Show Notice of Combining Shopping Cart on Login 1

Admin -> Catalog -> Product

Products Quantity Box Shows: No, Do not show Quantity Box
Warning: Does not show Quantity Box, Default to Qty 1

Product Qty Minimum: 1
Product Qty Maximum: 0
Product Qty Units: 1
Product Qty Min/Unit Mix: No

*I have tried to change the Product Qty to "0" but it reverts to "1".

My site information is: https://www.acmecarco.com/store/

Server OS: Linux 2.6.18-400.1.1.el5 Database: MySQL 5.6.23-log

PHP Version: 5.3.29 (Zend: 2.3.0) PHP Memory Limit: 512M PHP Safe Mode: Off

PHP File Uploads: On Max Size: 128M POST Max Size: 128M

Database Data Size: 7,702 kB Database Index Size: 1,429 kB

Template: Template Monster Theme #865

Any help would be appreciated. We had it working in 1.5.3, then our server crashed so we dod a complete fresh install of 1.5.4. I used Easy Populate 4 to import the 4,000+ items.

Does it work as expected when the ZC default template is used? If the answer is yes, then definitely a template related issue... If not, well... Might still be if it modified core files for installation..

No, it does not work with the default theme. It shows the warming as well (screen shot)

Ahh, try setting the units to 1 instead of 0 for that product.. The error message shown is more about the database configuration than the availability of product... Units I believe must be greater than 0. Which, the data provided in the original post (OP) indicated that the units are/were set to 1, so a little confused about the issue based on the information provided...

Ok, I see what you are saying. I have to have a least "1" in quantity for it to work, even if it will not check the stock.

I added "quantity: 1" to that item and checked out. It worked fine and it kept the 1 "in stock".

Thank you so much for the help. I was going crazy!

Also from when was the EP4 backup made? What about all of your customer's previous orders? Those in process, etc... How is that going to be rectified? (EP4 only goes so far...)

Luckily for us, the webstore is more information than actual order placing. I have a copy of the database in tact before the the crash, so I can pull them out if I needed. The old site was kind of a mess from a previous person doing the work. Now that I have a fresh site (visually and data wise), so I put the backup policy in place :-)

DanMickle:

Ok, I see what you are saying. I have to have a least "1" in quantity for it to work, even if it will not check the stock.

I added "quantity: 1" to that item and checked out. It worked fine and it kept the 1 "in stock".

Thank you so much for the help. I was going crazy!

Ohh, there is another setting in the configuration->Stock section that needs to be modified so that you could have an "in stock" of 0 or less and the product still be available on the site..

Products status in Catalog when out of stock should be set to

Should be changed to 0, so that the product remains active even with a 0 quantity..

the other issue I was describing though was based on the error message content, but it may be that the system was correcting itself because of the above setting being 1 (true) and somehow the quantity of product reached 0 which meant that the product should have been disabled (probably is now.. :) ).

Anyways, change the setting described: "Configuration->Stock->Products status in Catalog when out of stock should be set to" to a value of 0 and that should resolve your issue.

DanMickle:

Luckily for us, the webstore is more information than actual order placing. I have a copy of the database in tact before the the crash, so I can pull them out if I needed. The old site was kind of a mess from a previous person doing the work. Now that I have a fresh site (visually and data wise), so I put the backup policy in place :-)

I didn't comment on it before, because the issue wasn't template related as discovered by the additional information being provided; however, do not be surprised if you find issues with the template that you have as others have reported that template monster produces monsters of templates... No reason to ditch it right off the bat, but don't be surprised if you come across issues that need to be corrected with it...

Thanks for the heads up about TM.

I just noticed an issue which may be related. I made your suggested fix, and went in to try it and I could not check out. So I changed it back and tried it, and I could not check out. So, thinking back on the last product we were working with, the only difference was that I changed the quantity from "0" to "1" I did that with this product and it worked. Here is the issue:

I then just used easy populate to change the quantity to "1" for all our products, which it did. The problem still existed. I then went in and did nothing but "preview" the part then hit update (changed nothing) and now it works.

Am I going to have to go in to every single part and "preview" and click "update" or is there something I am missing that changed the quatity to 1, but is not refreshing something?

I hope this made sense, kind of hard to explain.

DanMickle:

Thanks for the heads up about TM.

I just noticed an issue which may be related. I made your suggested fix, and went in to try it and I could not check out. So I changed it back and tried it, and I could not check out. So, thinking back on the last product we were working with, the only difference was that I changed the quantity from "0" to "1" I did that with this product and it worked. Here is the issue:

I then just used easy populate to change the quantity to "1" for all our products, which it did. The problem still existed. I then went in and did nothing but "preview" the part then hit update (changed nothing) and now it works.

Am I going to have to go in to every single part and "preview" and click "update" or is there something I am missing that changed the quatity to 1, but is not refreshing something?

I hope this made sense, kind of hard to explain.

Suggestion would be to export the full product details to include a product that is exhibiting this issue. Then perform the update that you just did. Export the same data again. Look at the row for that product, what is different?

My guess is that there may be some other "auto-setting" that might need to be updated. If there is no difference in the comparison of the row of data, if you could do something similar from within phpmyadmin for the products table and from there see which field(s) need to be added to the user defined fields so that can "manually" update it..

Ok. I am about to head in to meetings, so I will try this later tonight. I will make sure to update the thread. I don't want to leave anytone hanging that may be having the same issue.

Thanks for your help and suggestions.

Here is what I have found out.

I did the Easy Populate import of all the products.

On the admin -> Catalog/Products -> Product screen for each part it shows:

Product Qty Min: 1
Product Qty Units: 1

But in the database (via phpMyAdmin) the database shows:

products_quantity_order_min = Value 0
products_quantity_order_units = Value 0

If I go back in to the admin and do Preview -> Update on the product, it then updates it in the database and everything works fine.

So I guess the issue is how/why does it show in the admin screen, but is not actually the value in the database until I push "update" on each product?

DanMickle:

Here is what I have found out.

I did the Easy Populate import of all the products.

On the admin -> Catalog/Products -> Product screen for each part it shows:

Product Qty Min: 1
Product Qty Units: 1

But in the database (via phpMyAdmin) the database shows:

products_quantity_order_min = Value 0
products_quantity_order_units = Value 0

If I go back in to the admin and do Preview -> Update on the product, it then updates it in the database and everything works fine.

So I guess the issue is how/why does it show in the admin screen, but is not actually the value in the database until I push "update" on each product?

Sorry to be a little "selfish", but what were the values in the EP4 file as part of the import for those two values? What was the filename when uploading it?

As for the fact that it shows as 1 and 1 when you go to view the product, if not mistaken there is a bit of error checking that occurs when showing the product for edit and that I think if that condition is detected (0 and 0) then a "default" like value is established (1 and 1) so that when updated (next step in the product modification process) the problem is "fixed"...

Found it. You got me thinking with the error code. There was one product that had a blank value in the field (min units). It did not show an error during the import. I fixed that one product and the database updated all the products and is working.

DanMickle:

Found it. You got me thinking with the error code. There was one product that had a blank value in the field (min units). It did not show an error during the import. I fixed that one product and the database updated all the products and is working.

Will take a look at trying to incorporate something into that portion of the code... At least something to look out for, like if it is blank or 0 then it should be modified to something else.. May have to look over one or more older versions of ZC to see how it was expected to be presented so that compatibility is maintained (or maybe just start correcting that aspect when used with "newer" versions of ZC..

So, just happened to be testing a "defective" product? :) Hate it when that happens that just happen to choose the one item that becomes the token for the entire process. :)

Just wanted to verify that there wasn't an issue with EP4 specifically.. Does so much, has so many options, not everyone uses all of them, hard to test sometimes, counting on other's input. :)