Sideboxes not displaying

I have installed a fresh version and started to play with the sideboxes.

I have found that a number of them do not display such as manufacturers.

Can you suggest what this issue may be please?

Thanks

The manufacturer sidebox won't show if there aren't any manufacturers associated with products.

You didn't say what you mean by "play with the sideboxes". NOTE: You need to turn them on or they won't show.

https://docs.zen-cart.com/user/sideboxes/

By play _ mean trying to get the site to look like my v1.5.1.

I have uploaded all my manufacturers and 5,000 products of which the first section belongs to a manufacturer but the sidebox still refuses to display and manufacturers sidebox is switched on

What template are you using?
Does the manufucturers sidebox show if you switch back to responsive_classic template?

What's the URL?

I have now reloaded all 27,00-odd products to no avail.

The problem exists in all templates and I chose responsive-classic as my preference.

http://digibooks.org.uk/db_library

OK now I have reloaded all products I am getting the manufacturers :)

Now a further issue - in v.1.5.1 I could click in the manufacturers list and start typing a name to select - v.1.5.7b won't let me do this and neither can I scroll down the list

Occasionally after a few clicks scrolling works but you need to be able to just click anywhere there and start tyoing a name as there are thousands of authors to scroll through!

v1.5.7b shows this with no drop-down

whilst v1.5.1 shows

With drop-down and ability to start typing a name in the box

What template was your 1.5.1 site using?
I suspect it had some customizations to the manufacturer_select sidebox template.

DrByte:

What template was your 1.5.1 site using?
I suspect it had some customizations to the manufacturer_select sidebox template.

It is using the Fresh template and I am not aware of making any changes to the manufacturer side box

At the end of the day - we do not sell - we do not have customer logins (members are handled by a third-party) and every time we have tried to upgrade to new versions we just run into multiple problems so I guess I will just reinstall v1.5.1 into our new site, make our bespoke changes and know that it actually works

Sorry to hear that you're epically frustrated.

I've spent 3 hours today setting up older Zen Cart versions to inspect this very situation for you.
I've compared code between versions, and discovered that all the code that draws the manufacturers_select sidebox is 95% the same between 1.5.1 and 1.5.7.
I've also compared the functions that the sidebox uses to generate related HTML are 80% the same.
In both cases, switching the 1.5.7 code back to the 1.5.1 code resulted in the SAME output as the 1.5.7 template.
I set up stores with custom ancient PHP and MySQL versions to attempt to simulate the problem, and in every case the 1.5.1 code showed the same kind of dropdown as the 1.5.7 code.

So I'm pretty confident that the problem is not in original Zen Cart code, and that it's specific to a customization you've made unique for your site.

Obviously one customization you've made is that the "manufacturers" is called "authors". Was that just a text change for the title? Or was it actually an "authors" sidebox that was created as a clone from the one for manufacturers before customizing its functionality?

Are you using custom product-types for books? Perhaps something in that is what was handling things on the old site, but hasn't been moved into the new one yet thus the display doesn't reflect it yet?

You mentioned "bespoke changes", but nowhere in this discussion have you outlined any of those bespoke ways in which your 1.5.1 site was customized. I clicked around some of your other posts, but this info isn't in those and I got tired of guessing.

You also haven't provided a link to the 1.5.1 site so some of the bespoke changes could be explored in lieu of you explaining them. Looking at the actual HTML of the sidebox could reveal some clues. Maybe the site doesn't currently exist online, but if it does, it would be helpful.

After tinkering for hours, trying to guess at what info you haven't provided, I'm done.

OwenB:

At the end of the day - we do not sell - we do not have customer logins (members are handled by a third-party) and every time we have tried to upgrade to new versions we just run into multiple problems so I guess I will just reinstall v1.5.1 into our new site, make our bespoke changes and know that it actually works
This is not a safe situation in which to operate considering the fixes that have been applied to the software, the developments that have been made, and how the support software to run that old version is way beyond end-of-life...

Is there a reason a backup copy of your live store that is then updated isn't/wasn't used instead of this "upload" of the various pieces and parts? That could be problematic as well... The upgrade process really is not that difficult if some very basic things are done to review, though nearly 10 years and still haven't been able to do an upgrade without impacting the store?

Further is there a reason the live store is even impacted at all? Isn't this "new installation" in a place where the store can continue to operate and make sales while this effort is done?

Thanks for all your hard work on this. I will reinstall v1.5.7 get the data transferred to the development site and check the sideboxes again and revert to you.

As mentioned previously like on our live site we need authors (manufacturers - as it just a heading change) should simply show one line saying Please Select with a drop-down so that we can type the author name to search. In v1.5.7 it simply wasn't doing this and I checked the manufacturers.php and it is the standard script on both installations.

I have added user: zencart / password: zencart to our third-party login system so that you can see the page on the live site.

http://digi-books.org.uk => Library

In order to show you the extent of the issue - I have installed a fresh version of v1.5.7b at http://booksense.org.uk/booksense_library and installed the demo data.

Manufacturers show as Please select and the first two manufacturer's names - no drop-down.

Clicking on Please Select you can scroll down (but like I said we have thousands).

So if I start typing Microsoft (of which there are products) all it does it take me to manufacturer Matrox and Please select changes to Reset so it appears there is something inherently wrong with the standard installation?

OwenB:

... Manufacturers show as Please select and the first two manufacturer's names - no drop-down.
...

In Admin > Configuration > Maximum Values > Manufacturers List - Scroll Box Size/Style

it says: Number of manufacturers names to be displayed in the scroll box window. Setting this to 1 or 0 will display a dropdown list.

Changing that should give you your dropdown.

Edit: that's on ZC v1.56c, I assume there's something similar in ZC v1.57b

simon1066:

In Admin > Configuration > Maximum Values > Manufacturers List - Scroll Box Size/Style

it says: Number of manufacturers names to be displayed in the scroll box window. Setting this to 1 or 0 will display a dropdown list.

Changing that should give you your dropdown.

Edit: that's on ZC v1.56c, I assume there's something similar in ZC v1.57b

Fabulous!!!!! - Thank you SO much :)

simon1066:

In Admin > Configuration > Maximum Values > Manufacturers List - Scroll Box Size/Style

it says: Number of manufacturers names to be displayed in the scroll box window. Setting this to 1 or 0 will display a dropdown list.

Changing that should give you your dropdown.

Edit: that's on ZC v1.56c, I assume there's something similar in ZC v1.57b

OwenB:

Fabulous!!!!! - Thank you SO much :)

Note that this is/was a setting that existed in ZC 1.5.1 which if that database had been imported and then upgraded through zc_install would have allowed the store to operate in the 1.5.7b version the same way that it had in 1.5.1... Otherwise, the site is truly being installed as a new site instead of one that has been set the way desired to support operation.

While I don't necessarily see the docs to have/show the link(s) I would have expected, but at least one functional link that at least explains a process through which to go to do an update which includes keeping the existing database not just pieces of it like was done above:
Standard Upgrade - Recommended Procedure | Zen Cart Documentation (zen-cart.com)