Disappearing Text Box

Ouch! Went to right a wrong, and got another wrong.

One of the kind posters on this forum suggested I make some of my dropdown attributes display only as you were able to add a product to the cart w/o selecting any attributes. So added display only to the -Select Whatever- attribute in my dropdowns, and works great. User gets an error if a selection is not made.

The only problem is my text box attribute disappears if the user does not fill in one of the attributes. Why? Where did it go? The text for the box remains, but the actual box disappears so user cannot add any comments.

As an example, this product was set up that way. Near the bottom is the text box. If you just click the "add to cart" bottom at the bottom right, you get the validation errors, but then scroll back down to the attributes and the text box is gone...
:blink:

And FYI...happens in both IE and FF...

Could you switch to Classic Template?

Does the error correct itself?

What version Zen Cart?

Clean install or an upgrade?

How did you install?

How did you upgrade?

Ajeh...

Classic template produces same result;
v.1.3.7 w/ most of the patches installed;
Upgrading since 1.2.7;
Upgraded per forum instructions, etc.

So far, I cannot reproduce this problem ...

Beyond Compare from scootersoftware.com is a great tool for comparing a clean Zen Cart to your site and checking that you have not missed any changes, new files, etc.

I suspect you have a file out of date ...

One test is to load into a test directory with a test database a clean Zen Cart and just try this ... do you run into the same issues?

If not, then this may help you find what is really missing or out of date either in the code or template ...

Thanks....maybe like finding a needle in a hay stack. Any thoughts on what section/file might be a good place to start comparing...

/includes/modules/pages/product_info/.
/includes/modules/attributes.php
/includes/templates/template_default/templates/tpl_product_info_display.php
/includes/templates/template_default/templates/tpl_modules_attributes.php

for starters ...

Still the same problem, here is what I did to test:

Checked customized files above per Ajeh for changes, and all ok (no changes in the first two listed, and renamed my customized template files (the last two files listed) to .old to take the defaults in the template_default directory), and box still disappears;

Installed a fresh 1.3.7.1 version with demo products. Added an option name for a text box with exact variables/dimensions as I am using in my live site to one of the demo products. Other attributes in this product were set to Display Only, click to add to cart, error comes up for the display only fields, but text box remains...yeah! So demo product/fresh install with my specs for the text box works fine;

Imported a copy of my existing live db over the demo products in the fresh install of 1.3.7.1, test the same product listed in my first post and box disappears. :blink:

So could this be something in the DB as the fresh install obviously does not include any customizations??

I am having the exact same problem as well, on this page:

http://happycatlights.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=9&products_id=22

thank you crimson...not going crazy!

What version of zencart, and what mods are you running?

Anyone know why the text box would be affected?

What happens if you switch to Classic Template?

Has this ever worked for you?

What version Zen Cart and from where?

Clean install or an upgrade?

How did you install?

How did you upgrade?

tcustomgolf,

What are all of these stylesheets that you load? The /css directory is auto loading and it looks like you have a lot of extra stylesheets in there that could be causing issues ...

I did answer most of the questions in your post before the above, with the exception of if it had worked before....and I don't know because this was the first time I tried the "display only" attribute.

I know some of the stylesheets are for mods, like the lightbox and un_classic (for the wishlist mod). But I think I do remember trying to delete the stylesheet-old.css and it causing problems with my site. So is anything in that dir autoloading? I thought naming it -old will not let it load.

So, port/update whatever is in the -old stylesheet to stylesheet.css and then delete stylesheet-old.css?

• Still doesn't work
• This is the first time I've tested it, so I'm not sure
• Zen Cart 1.7.3.1, from official site
• Clean install
• Followed install instructions
• No upgrade yet

Ajeh:

What happens if you switch to Classic Template?

Has this ever worked for you?

What version Zen Cart and from where?

Clean install or an upgrade?

How did you install?

How did you upgrade?

tcustomgolf,

I cannot repeat this with any combinations ...

Renaming a stylesheet is difficult for non-loading ... usually something like:
OLD_stylesheetname.css_OLD will keep it from loading and conflicting ...

Do a view source to see all the stylesheets that are loading ...

crimson090,

What happens if you switch to the Classic template? Does it start working for you?

Ajeh:

crimson090,

What happens if you switch to the Classic template? Does it start working for you?

Nope, still the same problem unfortunately!

I renamed the .old stylesheet per Ajeh's post, so it no longer shows auto-loading. Also renamed all stylesheets that are loading, one by one, including the default "stylesheet.css" so they do not auto-load, and box still disappears.

Per one of my earlier posts, after a fresh install got it working, I imported my existing db into the fresh install and the box disappeared. Could something in the db be causing this?

** crimson090**, I noticed the link you included earlier is working. The description box remains. Anything you did to correct?

tcustomgolf:

I renamed the .old stylesheet per Ajeh's post, so it no longer shows auto-loading. Also renamed all stylesheets that are loading, one by one, including the default "stylesheet.css" so they do not auto-load, and box still disappears.

Per one of my earlier posts, after a fresh install got it working, I imported my existing db into the fresh install and the box disappeared. Could something in the db be causing this?

** crimson090**, I noticed the link you included earlier is working. The description box remains. Anything you did to correct?

Hey, you're right! I didn't even notice! Very odd. I believe I only made two changes to my product page recently:

1. Changed the size and number of attribute images displayed each row. I doubt this had anything to do with it.

2. I had two "Add to Cart" buttons, one of which was above all of my attribute fields. I removed this due to other reasons, but I wonder if that might have been effecting it? I checked your product page though and didn't see that button anywhere above your attributes, so I'm not sure what might be causing the problem on your site.

Thanks crimson....if you do figure out what it was, please post. Still thinking it could be something database related as it went kaput as soon as I loaded my clean install with my db.

I will search some more for an answer, but unfortunately will have to forgo this feature until 1.3.8 comes out and I can do a clean upgrade.

I realize this is a very old thread, however, I have yet to find a fix posted to solve this issue and have found a number of people asking.

The problem stems from a database issue that occurs on some installs of third party mods. Some of them inadvertently deleted a few records from the db, and that is the cause of the problem. To correct the mysterious disappearing text box on zen cart run the following lines of code from within your Admin (SQL Patches) area.

If you get "duplicate" error messages just disregard. It means that a line or two of those being inerted was already present (which is ok) in the db.

Run this and you should see the boxes stay put on the page now.

INSERT INTO `configuration` VALUES ('', 'Product option type Select', 'PRODUCTS_OPTIONS_TYPE_SELECT', '0', 'The number representing the Select type of product option.', 0, NULL, '2007-03-19 17:57:39', '2007-03-19 17:57:39', NULL, NULL);
INSERT INTO `configuration` VALUES ('', 'Upload prefix', 'UPLOAD_PREFIX', 'upload_', 'Prefix used to differentiate between upload options and other options', 0, NULL, '2007-03-19 17:57:39', '2007-03-19 17:57:39', NULL, NULL);
INSERT INTO `configuration` VALUES ('', 'Text prefix', 'TEXT_PREFIX', 'txt_', 'Prefix used to differentiate between text option values and other option values', 0, NULL, '2007-03-19 17:57:39', '2007-03-19 17:57:39', NULL, NULL);
INSERT INTO `configuration` VALUES ('', 'Image Handler Version', 'IH_VERSION', '2.0', 'This is used by image handler to check if the database is up to date with uploaded image handler files.', 0, 100, NULL, '2007-06-06 16:47:03', NULL, 'zen_cfg_textarea_small(');

This concept was pulled form an old post by Ajeh found here:
http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showpost.php?p=408898&postcount=10