auto email not generated after sale

[SeanJ]

As the title says - I cannot seem to see why we are not receiving any auto emails when a customer makes a purchase. I have the option under business settings checked to send (us) a copy of the customers sale confirmation but we don't receive it. I am not in a position to say if the customer actually receives theirs either unfortunately.

On the upside I know the general email side of things is functioning fine with Outlook etc, and even the test in network settings produces an auto email after OK'ing the rest of the functions - so all is well there.

Anyone any ideas where else I might look for a clue to this issue please? Not had much luck with a forum search unfortunately.

thanks. Sean

[leehack]

Does the email address in business settings match that in network settings and nothing silly like spam filters stepping in? Setup a dummy product for 1p, buy it yourself and test the process, no need to sit there wondering, you can test these things yourself and see what happens.

[SeanJ]

thanks Lee, yeah I've tried a £1 purchase - if 1p purchases are possible(?) then yeah that sounds the way to go. The business and network email settings are the same thanks.

I've found an old thread (2003) that dealt with a similar problem and it was put down to the customer not waiting to be taken back to the shopping cart, as they were closing the connection at the point of completing the bank payment, this will be my next test when in the workplace. I isuppose this action has to happen to enable actinic to correctly action the email(s)? . I'd be surprised if this is the reason though - hope it is though!

Note: we've moved to TameTheWeb in recent months, Darren's been great with support but is out of the office for a short time - so possibly my issue is server side? Also our Contact form is working fine - no problems there.

regards. Sean

[pinbrook]

the most straightforward test is to buy a product (use COD as payment method or CC detail sent separately)

use an off domain email address (gmail is good as spam filter there is excelent) as customer. make sure you hit "Done" on last checkout page.

you should now get 2 emails, one as siteowner one as customer. if you get the customer one that tells you where the error is, if you get neither that is telling too.

[SeanJ]

Sorted

jo thanks, I feel stupid now as the 'pay by cheque' option was always there (derrr!), anyway both mails were received and are working as they should. I think this looks like a cas of customer (and myself) probably not fully completing the process - not allowing to be taken back to the site for full closure. Thanks Lee for your input also.

regards. Sean

[leehack]

Some have reported 'much better' results by changing the text on the 'done' button to something more likley to encourage a click, for example "click here to complete your order". This goes on the bottom of the receipt page then instead of the crappy little button. You could try that, i think it's in design | text where you can change it.

[kakshaks]

I thought once the customer has returned to receipt.html then the emails were generated. Or, are you saying they have to return to the receipt page AND press Done.

[leehack]

That's right yes.

[Mike Hughes]

they have to return to the receipt page AND press Done.

I think this is a myth that hangs over from the early days of Actinic. Even Actinic support used to to say this but I'm pretty sure this isn't the case and isn't what I see myself.

To generate the customer emails, the customer just needs to return to the receipt page. Some of the confusion arises because you need to get the customer to click on the 'return' button from the psp/paypal to get them to receipt page which is where the modified text works well.

It's quite easy to test this on a live system. Place a test order but don't click the 'done' button. I always get an email in this case.

Mike

[leehack]

I'd agree to a certain extent as I too have seen emails sent when the button is not pressed, but i've also seen it when it hasn't sent them, albeit not as regularly. I think a more accurate explanation of the situation as I see it is that the sending of the email can be intermittent if it is not pressed. Not sure what causes the intermittance, whether it is even actinic related but it definitely has/still does exist AFAIK. Perhaps it is linked somehow to how the person leaves the receipt page as opposed to whether they press the button, it's a strange one.

[Mike Hughes]

There might be some dependency on the payment method, but I'd be surprised.

I'm still using V6 and enter phone orders via the website using the 'send card details separately' payment method. This always generates the emails even though I never click the 'done' button.

Mike

[rmorrow]

I have a feeling the PSP callback might be involved here. I seem to remember seeing some e-mail generation in the order script during the process of recording authorisation from the PSP. I guess this could be tested fairly easily...

[fergusw]

To my knowledge the email confirmation is created and sent by the perl script file that is executed before the receipt page is displayed, i.e. the receipt page cgi, when called, first sends the email and then returns the receipt HTML to the browser.
This issue is more than likely server side; either the email address it is sending to is not working or routing correctly, or some other server side issue.