Error Pages Support Thread

Error Pages v1.0.0 gives your store a friendly 404 page and a 503 page: a hanging sign with your logo, your own wording, and a way for the visitor to carry on.

Download: https://github.com/dbltoe/Error_Pages/releases/tag/v1.0.0

What your visitors see

• 404, page not found: your logo, a short statement, the likely reasons, a search box for your store, an optional Google search of your site, and a Return To Home Page button.
• Report This Error: one click sends you the missing address and the page the visitor came from. No form to fill in and no email program to open.
• 503, temporarily unavailable: the same sign with your message and an optional contact line. It's also the page shown when the store can't reach its database.

How it works

The pages are plain files written into your store folder (404.shtml, 503.shtml and nddbc.html), so they still show when PHP or the database is the thing that's down. They load nothing from outside your store.

The logo is read from your store's header, whatever file type it is, and the pages are written again on their own when you change a setting or your header.

A request for a main_page that doesn't exist gets the same 404 page, at the address the visitor asked for, with a real 404 status. Zen Cart redirects those on its own; there's a switch if you'd rather keep it that way.

No core file and no template file is edited.

Settings

Everything is on Tools > Error Pages: on/off switches for each page, the wording, the search boxes, the report button and who gets its email, the logo, and the colors. Match My Store's Colors fills the color boxes from your home page, and a readability check tells you if a pair is hard to read. The same screen lists the reported addresses, previews both pages, and checks from your browser that your server is showing the 404 page.

Reports

Each missing address is logged once with a count. You get one email per new address, at most 10 an hour, and the log keeps up to 2,000 addresses. Only addresses on your own store are accepted.

What you need

• Zen Cart 1.5.8 through 3.0.0, PHP 7.4 through 8.5.
• A store folder the web server can write to.

Getting started

1. Copy zc_plugins/ErrorPages into your store's zc_plugins folder.
2. Install it under Modules > Plugin Manager.
3. View any storefront page once. The files are written on that first view.
4. Open Tools > Error Pages and make the wording yours.

On cPanel servers that's all. Other servers need two ErrorDocument lines in the store's .htaccess; the settings screen tells you if yours does and shows the lines to copy.

Uninstalling

Uninstall removes the plugin's pages, settings and report log. If a 404.shtml, 503.shtml or nddbc.html was already there, it was kept and is put back.

The full guide is in the download's README.md, and once it's installed, the ReadMe button in Plugin Manager opens it for superusers.

Questions and problem reports are welcome here. Please include your Zen Cart and PHP versions.