Disappearing Specials...or are they???

One of my Zen Cart sites running 1.3.6 http://cockburnsofleith.co.uk/shop/ has decided not to show any specials on the Specials page.

They are definitely there, as they are called randomly in the header and are being displayed, and can be clicked on.

However, when you select the Special Offers page http://cockburnsofleith.co.uk/shop/index.php?main_page=specials, there don't appear to be any specials there. Very strange.

The guy who updates the catalogue says that he's done nothing to any of the settings except add new products to the specials list.

Any ideas??

Thanks,

Andrew

If you look at that Specials page ... you will notice the lack of a footer ...

In the view source, you will notice that the page never completes ... :eek:

Somewhere along the way, there are either corrupt, missing, bad etc. files for this page ...

If you switch to Classic Template, does the Specials page load?

OT- Great looking site! I hope you will consider putting the Powered by Zen Cart link back in the footer and submitting it to the Showcase.

Hi - thanks for the responses.

The same problem occurs in the Classic template as well.

I've narrowed the problem down to tpl_main_page.php, and this particular part around line 135:

It stops when it reaches here.

Any ideas??

Thanks,

Andrew

Just to update you, it seems that it's one of the products in the catalogue causing the problems. When it is disabled, everything works a treat.

There's nothing obvious in its details to make it stop displaying pages properly looks puzzled

Thanks for your help.

Andrew

Check the description and see if there is anything off on it such as broken tables or the like ...

One test is to put the description in NotePad and save it without a description and see how it works ...

Here's something....the same thing has happened in another site that's being set up: www.forrestofkelso.co.uk.

Click on Walking Sticks in the categories, and the again it grinds to a halt. This is another 1.3.6 site.

Has anyone else experienced this?

I see Specials on your site ... did you fix this or turn off the product?

The other site appears to have a problem but nothing comes up in the search for:
cane
walking
stick

To begin to see what is causing this issue ...

Hi again,

Thanks for the reply. Did part of your message get chopped off? It seems to just stop.

Probably should of written that as:
to begin to see what is causing this issue ...

As in I know there is a problem but I cannot search on the product and find them to know what the problem is ...

Based on the canes having issues ...

I do not know your Categories and Products to try to reproduce the problem and see the original data ...

The 'Walking Sticks' category has just one sub-category at the moment called 'Folding Canes'. I disabled it then created a new sub-category with the same name. The new one displays fine.

The only difference I can see between the old and new one is that the old one had an image uploaded for the sub-cat image.

I've just had a thought. Both the wine merchant site and this one run the Image Handler 2.0 contribution. Could that be where the problem lies, as things seem to be falling over just where the image should be coming in? Sorry I never thought of that before.

What do you think?

It is possible ...

Something is blocking the loading of the page ...

And as it is sporadic there appears to be something about a given product that triggers this ...

That's what I was wondering about with Image Handler, or does it only do its thing when images are uploaded in the first place?

Image Handler is not part of the Zen Cart core code so I do not know off hand the answer to that ...

Perhaps someone who uses it will see this and be able to help you further ...

Hi, I too have a similar problem. I am using Zen Cart 1.3.7, I have defined a Special and it is activated. I can see this Special in a Left Sidebox. Yet when I click on the Specials SideBox Header (Specials [More]) or click on the Specials... link in the Categories Box I get essentially a blank page. That is, I see the store header, the sideboxes and the footer but no specials, and no SPECIALS page title. See www.bestdarndogstuff.com/store/ . I am not using the Image Handler 2.0 third-party mod. Please help.

PJD

Does it work better if you have more than one item in the Database?

Kim:

Does it work better if you have more than one item in the Database?

No, no better... (actually we're just starting out so there are only two products defined (out there, :shocking:, on the WWW), one is Special.) I have a local copy on the PC where many more products are defined and are on Special, or Featured or Salemaker items and am experimenting with how they interact with each other (but no specials to see in the centerbox area).

I've been following several threads that seem to allude to the situation of having a Specials page that is blank, to no avail. I have switched back to the Classic Green template - nothing. Someone somewhere suggested that margins were not right, I tried their suggestion - nothing. Another suggested that being signed in would allow these to show (vs showcase only or something) - nothing.

For example, in Featured Products, even if there is only one product and that one product is featured, going to the Featured Products page shows that one product in the centerbox area. I know that there are differences between Featured, Specials and Salemakers though. I just cant put my finger on what is happening with Specials not being displayed in the centerbox area. But, thanks for the tip Kim.

PJD

Sorry to ask an obvious question and apologies if it sound cheeky, but have you checked the actual Specials file to make sure that nothing's happened to it? You could rename it with .old at the end to have a backup, then upload an original of it. Worth a try?

Andrew

webworkshop:

have you checked the actual Specials file to make sure that nothing's happened to it? Andrew

I should check the actual file, but as I am new at this (ie. very new) I havnt got the whole SQL database thing down yet. Can you provide me stepwise instructions on how to check the Specials file, what to do, and what to look for. I would appreciate it.

p.s. this is a clean install of 1.3.7 at my host and some of the only things I have changed are some of the text defines and of course the style sheets. But I would like to check the file if I knew what to look for. Thanks.

PJD

Hi Again,

any experienced Zen folks, please take a look at this code. I have been having trouble getting my Specials to display when I click on the 'Specials...' link in the category sidebox and elsewhere. It seems as though the file should be OK since I can see the special when I look at the product directly. The following code is a snipit from what I get when viewing the empty (blank) Specials page Source code.

I start from the eof ez-pages marker through the footer link for the Home page. As you can see there seems to be no code for the display of the Specials in the centerbox area.

Any ideas on how to resolve this would be greatly appreciated by this new Zenner. Thanks.

Please Help. See my previous posts for what I've tried so far and the store link. I'm on a clean install of v1.3.7.

PJD