Slow bounce from basket to checkout

[jmedinger]

Hi there

We're having a very frustrating problem on our recently upgraded (to v9) site.
It appears like the problem's limited to IE7 too.

Using IE7, when you have a couple of items in the cart and you click checkout the site either just sits there for 20-40 seconds before it bounces on to the checkout (no SSL or anything like that).

My feeling is that it's a script issue and the error.err file shows an entry of

Program = ORDERSCR, Program version = 21561 , HTTP Server = Apache                        , Return code = 999                 , Date and Time = 2009/04/01 12:37, Internal Errors = -1238589416 file=../acatalog/89Z195Z142Z248A1238587664B12183.session.LCK
Program = ORDERSCR, Program version = 21561 , HTTP Server = Apache                        , Return code = 999                 , Date and Time = 2009/04/01 12:37, Internal Errors = Lock:[325]: Stale lock - forcing removal of ../acatalog/89Z195Z142Z248A1238587664B12183.session.LCK

each time this happens.

One thing I noticed was that the URL

http://www.manchesterminerals.co.uk/cgi/os000008.pl?ACTION=Start&REFPAGE=http%3a%2f%2fwww.manchesterminerals.co.uk%2facatalog%2fCandle_holders.html&ACTINIC_REFERRER=http%3a%2f%2fwww.manchesterminerals.co.uk%2fcgi%2fca000008.pl&REFPAGE=http%3a%2f%2fwww.manchesterminerals.co.uk%2facatalog%2fCandle_holders.html

seems to put the REFPAGE into the URL twice when clicking 'Checkout' from the Basket page

Also (and I'm not sure if this is related), IE7 seems to be 'losing' the CSS stylesheet as you navigate between pages and the cart - although if you refresh the page then it 'finds' it again.

Anyone got any ideas that could help?