General Script error at Checkout

[andy27]

A General Script Error Occurred

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Error: Your shopping cart has expired, orders must be completed within 3 hours or they will be automatically cancelled.
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Press the Browser back button and try again or contact the site owner



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a few of my customers keep getting the above message when they try and order from my store does anyone have any ideas as to why they would get it.
i have just tried and for some reason now i get the same error

store is www.breathesport.com

thanks
Andy

[Mike Hughes]

It's basically saying that the cookie has expired after it's 3 hour lifetime.

Your server has the correct time:

Date: Wed, 09 Feb 2005 09:48:27 GMT

I can't see why this should be happening to you. You could check your PC's clock.

Mike

edit: Your PC's clock and timezone setting will effect the cookie as a cookies expiry time is set based on the servers view of GMT plus the expiry time. If your PC's clock was set to a time zone 3 hours ahead then the even though the time is right the cookie will expire immediately. (I think I got this the right way around but I'm sure you'll understand the concept).

[andy27]

yeah i thought it could be the clocks and have got them to check and there in the right time, so far its only 2 people that have this problem that i know of, 1 person in the uk and 1 person in sweden.

anybody got any other thoughts why this could be.?

its only happening when they try and hit the check page (the page before they enter there address etc is where it crashes when they click next)

[pinbrook]

you could always increase the cookie expiry time

[andy27]

could you tell me how i do that?

thanks
Andy

[Mike Hughes]

web > configure expiry periods.

Mike

[andy27]

sorry to re bring this back up i have tried alteringthe expirey periods to make it longer but it still hasnt helped and now more and more customers are unable to place an order does anyone have any ideas, this isnt helping business much

thanks

Andy

[cdicken]

I imagine that it is a firewall/privacy issue when customers switch to your SSL site. The cookie for the site is created via the domain...

http://www.breathesport.com/cgi-bin/

but then customers are re-directed to the checkout, they cookies are read by the scripts in the following domain...

https://sslrelay.com/breathesport.com/cgi-bin/

Customers with very high privacy settings in their firewall may then have the cookies ignored/blocked (because they think that the cookies are trying to be read by some third-party tracking software or something) and so the scripts think that the cookie has timed out.

The only surefire way to fix this really is to have your own SSL certificate under your own domain name.

[andy27]

thanks for the reply

ive just had a few people try,

one person has lowered the ie security settings to Low, and doesnt have a firewall and still carnt order.

how hard is it to set up a secured ssl under my domain name and would this solve the problem you think ?

[cdicken]

one person has lowered the ie security settings to Low, and doesnt have a firewall and still carnt order.

How strange. I've been able to enter the checkout fine with both IE and Firefox. At what point are people getting the error message?

how hard is it to set up a secured ssl under my domain name and would this solve the problem you think ?

This is something a web host will often do for you - the trick is then to get Actinic working with it - but that won't be any harder than getting it working with your current SSL setup.

[andy27]

People are getting the error message when they are in the checkout and they have selected there country and once they click the 'Next' button is when the message comes up ( the screen before you enter all your address information)

[cdicken]

I'm afraid I have exhausted my knowledge on this one. I think I was wrong to suggest it was an issue in the SSL transition, simply because the error is happening whilst customers are viewing the SSL.

I think you will need to research this further with a support technician by registering an email support query at http://www.actinic.co.uk/support/register.htm

[garyhay]

Chris

I have a client with the same problem.. Do you know if it was ever traced to a particular cause.

[Mike Hughes]

Chris may have been on the right track when talking about cookies being blocked. The thing I would try though is not to lower 'security' but to try changing the 'privacy' settings.

I had a strange example of cookies being blocked this morning when I put through a customer order online (still using V6 at the moment). When I got to the receipt page I noticed that I had the 'blocked cookie' symbol in my browser. For some reason it was blocking a cookie from my overture conversion tracking but didn't complain about the Google tracking.

Anyway, Cookies can be blocked if they're coming from a different domain name and that can be changed using lower privacy settings in your browser.

Mike

[BilstonBob]

I'm now experiencing exactly the same problem as Andy and Gary, on a new site I need to complete urgently. It happens during the shipping phase of checkout.

It's strange that I have 2 other sites working with the same host and I don't get this cookie timeout error. It makes me think it's something else other than the privacy settings etc. I've tried adjusting mine and it makes no difference.

Andy did you manage to resolve this easily? What do Actinic technical support say about this Chris? Please don't tell me I have to install my own SSL certificate!

Anthony