Canada Post module

Northfur:

Powered through that last error. Now I'm hitting a wall again with this error:

[16-Jan-2019 10:22:00 America/Toronto] PHP Warning: file_get_contents(http://198.33.104.28:30000/%29: failed to open stream: Connection refused in /home/northfur/public_html/includes/modules/shipping/canadapost.php on line 342

I've tried the IP address and the sellonline address, I've tried with and without the fix from post #284
We just can't connect to Canada Post's old sellonline system anymore? http://sellonline.canadapost.ca:30000/ is unreachable?

**1 - **Check that your server is allowing access through the dedicated port that Canada Post requires.

2 - Find a way to accurately test traffic through the port to or from your site.

3 - Also check that the port number is correct in the code in case someone changed it - in code or at Canada Post.

LiNeWAlKeR:

What is a good alternative to using the Canada Post Module? We still want to use Canada Post just need another way to have it available for customers to get a close to reasonable shipping rate. What do most of you use to do this table rates?

Any insight would be helpful thank you for your response.

Ryan

Yes. - Tables will work and you can easily write out the 'math' in excel so it's easier to see, then paste it as comma delimited into the tables module.

Alternately we have custom coded a number of shipping 'matrix' modules that can accomplish merging of things like shipping dimensions, shipping weight and shipping time windows relative to store hours or delivery options available.

As mentioned in post #384 of this thread there are means to use the account specific pricing that Canada Post and all other shipping companies provide to businesses to create a postal/Google address enhanced connection without connecting directly to the **Canada Post server **(or any other shipping company API).

I am currently running ZenCart V 1.5.6a and have been told that the version of the coding in the Canada Post Module needs updating. Since my coding skills are not current I am unable to do it and was wondering if there are plans to update and if so when might this happen.? Does anyone have a working version on ZenCart V1.5.6a that they might share?

I am running the same issue, I have one working test site, you can check it here:
http://www.chandelierparts.ca/new56a/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=1

There is only one product populated as It is a testing area, I don't know how it worked, but it is.

I posted a question about this issue but didn't get any answer, you can check it at:
https://www.zen-cart.com/showthread.php?225183-Can-t-add-product-to-category-after-adding-canadapost-module&p=1355686#post1355686

I will try to extract the files in the same order inside their corresponding folders and post them as soon as I can, but as I am not a coder, I don't get any responsibility.

You can try this module on a test folder.

Thanks

zmh

I had the shipping calculations working okay in 1.5.6a (php 7.2) and only got the error message mentioned above when trying to edit or create new products in the admin. Looking at the list of changed files I see that admin/incl/modules/document_general/product/collect_info.php files have been updated so going to see what code I can merge. (I'm also not a coder!)

A warning for anyone using the old sellonline profile site for shipping rates. Canada Post, for no reason, has changed settings on their end.

Before, when you selected "Add Insurance" under General Information and entered say, $100, for the insurance activation amount, Canada Post would simply add insurance for orders over 100. It would generate shipping rates for small packet air, Tracked Packet, Expedited, Xpresspost, Priority, and add insurance WHERE APPLICABLE.

So if a customer had a $200 order, it would generate rates for Small Packet Air (no insurance), Tracked Packet (maxed out insurance at $100), and add the extra ~2.25 for the Expedited, Xpresspost and Priority(maxed out insurance at $200) quotes for the extra insurance.

Now, for at least the past 2ish weeks: It seems like Canada Post will not generate rates for any service that it cannot fully insure, dropping them from any generated quotes.

For example, an order valued at $300, Canada Post will no longer display rates for Small Packet Air, Tracked Packet nor Priority, and only return rates for Expedited and Xpresspost since they're the only insurable services at $300.

I haven't tested the upper end of this, Canada Post's maximum insurance is $1000 with Xpresspost to the USA and Internationally, so maybe it'll return no shipping rates at all for large value orders...

Just received an email from one of my Merchants using SellOnline for CP quotes and they are receiving "An unknown error occured with the Canada Post shipping calculations."

Anyone else getting this when trying to retrieve Canada Post shipping quotes at the moment? Want to be sure it's not a system-wide issue before I pull the site apart.

That server's been down since the wee hours of Sunday for me, and appears to still be unreachable. I bought a module that accesses CP via SOAP, which is working just fine - that server is up & running. The SOAP server doesn't offer any Lettermail options like the SellOnline did, so I cloned Free Shipping Options & set it up with a weight restriction (which meant going through the data for all my products that don't fit in a padded envelope & assigning them an imaginary weight higher than the restriction - a bit ugly, but I can live with ugly if it works.)

Otterslide:

That server's been down since the wee hours of Sunday for me, and appears to still be unreachable. I bought a module that accesses CP via SOAP, which is working just fine - that server is up & running. The SOAP server doesn't offer any Lettermail options like the SellOnline did, so I cloned Free Shipping Options & set it up with a weight restriction (which meant going through the data for all my products that don't fit in a padded envelope & assigning them an imaginary weight higher than the restriction - a bit ugly, but I can live with ugly if it works.)

Would you mind linking me to the module you purchased? I'd love to leave sellonline behind. Thanks!

Zucando's Advanced Canada Post: https://zucando.com/zen-cart-modules/shipping-modules/advanced-canada-post Seems to be working fine, but it's only been a couple of days and coincidentally most of my customers have been either Lettermail or free shipping so I haven't used it much. A couple of important notes: read the readme that comes with the module (html file in docs unhelpfully labelled "index.html"). And the customer has to be enrolled in the CP Developers Program because the username & password asked for in the module during setup is from the production API keys, it is NOT the username & pass from their CP account.

Do this:

• go to Developer Program portal page (https://www.canadapost.ca/cpc/en/business/ecommerce/integrate-apis.page?)
• Click "Go To Developer Program" button & log in as your customer if they are signed up, or sign them up if they're not already
• find the table with the API Keys (link is in left hand menu, 3rd from bottom)
• copy Production username and password from the table shown and paste them into the setup panel in the module (they are separated by a colon in the API keys table)

The installation instructions with the module are not as comprehensive as they should be (ha ha! understatement) and it took me a while to figure out the username & password thing. There might be another decent CP module out there? I dunno, I didn't look too hard as I was in a hurry to get my shipping back up & running. Looking back upthread there've been folks that haven't been able to get it to work for them, but the version I've installed in my shop (currently running v.1.5.5f) seems to be ok so far.

Otterslide:

Zucando's Advanced Canada Post: https://zucando.com/zen-cart-modules/shipping-modules/advanced-canada-post

Thanks so much Otterslide, I'll give it a whirl.

Finally received a reply from Canada Post:

Hi,

The sell online application was upgraded this past weekend to only accept HTTP(s) requests, all TCP requests will be rejected. There was a fix released yesterday morning as the application was rejecting HTTP requests as well but has now been resolved. That being said, in order for to access the application you will need to make changes so your application is sending HTTP(s) requests only. Let me know if you have any questions.

Thank you,
Angad Chawla
Project Implementation Officer | Canada Post

Pretty huge change to make without informing anyone (no mention of it on the SellOnline main page). I'll do some fiddling this weekend to see if I can get the original version working again (SellOnline has integrated box support for much more accurate quotes, Zucando's doesn't unfortunately). Will post again if I have any success -- any help is definitely welcome!

I've been trying to install Zucando's module but nothing is showing in the checkout. I've followed your instructions, have the API production username and password entered. What is this SOAP thing. Does that have to do with my webhost or not. It's the only thing I don't understand, everything else seems to be in order.

Nevermind, I somehow got it to work by reentering the info, something must have been incorrect.

Another vexing thing about the Zucando module: it returns an estimated arrival date calculated from the present date, with no turnaround time. Plugin author, when contacted, says that that's the response of CP, and changing it would require a big customization of the code. Okay, fair enough, this module is really super-basic and needs to be developed out, by somebody who actually has the skill set (not me).

Otterslide:

Another vexing thing about the Zucando module: it returns an estimated arrival date calculated from the present date, with no turnaround time. Plugin author, when contacted, says that that's the response of CP, and changing it would require a big customization of the code. Okay, fair enough, this module is really super-basic and needs to be developed out, by somebody who actually has the skill set (not me).

I'm not really happy with it either, but just using it as a bandaid for now so customers can at least place their orders. Is the original module being updated?

Well, if we could get the old Sellonline module to send HTTPS requests to the Sellonline server, it'd work - that server is still up & running. But it wouldn't solve the actual problem, which is that Canada Post wants to depreciate that server entirely and get us all to change over to using the API. And yeah okay I can see their point, it's faster and more secure; and they kept saying they were going to change over, but we all lollygagged about and didn't prepare for it so now we're scrambling.

It appears that, specifically, to get the SellOnline module to work, it has to be changed to use POST (rather than GET, as it does now) per these specs: https://qa-sellonline.canadapost.ca/DevelopersResources/protocolV3/index.html

I've updated the SellOnline module to use the HTTPS requests, and drop the old TCP requests on port 30000.

If your site was already using SellOnline, you can simply replace the /includes/modules/shipping/canadapost.php file found in the updated plugin zip at: https://www.zen-cart.com/downloads.php?do=file&id=4 (ie: you don't need to touch the other files)

You can also tell your hosting company that they no longer need to open TCP port 30000 on your firewall for this (if you had previously made a special request for them to open it).

Thanks for the update, but it doesn't seem to work for me, I think perhaps there have been other modifications made in the file, are there just certain lines of code that need to be changed, if so could you refer me to line numbers? Any help appreciated as my site is pretty much down for shipping right now.

Do I have to change anything in the settings, I noticed the addition of the _XML, not sure if that is anything... sorry I am not a coder, I have contacted one to hire to fix this, but have not heard back yet, and very much need this fixed, we are a halloween shop and this is our busy season.