Cart shows empty unless on view cart page

[Penny]

I've just upgraded to V7 and am using the Smart template. Launched the new site at the weekend but find the cart contents don't show while browsing.

The cart contents show up ok if you go to the view cart(trolley) page and if you go to checkout the contents are there. It's just when you return to shopping after adding something to the cart(trolley) then it looks as if the cart is empty.

I've enabled cookies on my browser.
I've chosen the basic P3P policy.

Could it be anything to do with the wierd topology of Demon who host my site?

Any insights will be gratefully received.
Penny
www.lavenderlifestyles.co.uk

[Mike Hughes]

It looks to me like you have some network settings problems somewhere.

For some reason calls to the cgi-bin are (for example):

http://cgi.www.demon.net/cgi-bin/www...uk/ca000001.pl

Surely this can't be right? and if it is I can understand why the cart contents summary won't work as most browsers are setup to reject cookies from another domain.

Mike

[Mike Hughes]

OK. More information. According to this page from demon

http://www.demoninternet.biz/helpdes...usingcgis.html

your cgi calls should be of the form (you'll have to mouse-over to see the full url as this forum shortens them):

http://cgi.www.yourdomain.co.uk/cgi-...your-script.pl

If you compare this with what you have it looks like you're calling the scripts from demon's domain and not your own.

More details can be found on the page I've linked to above.

Mike

[Penny]

Thank you for such a prompt and thoughtful reply, I think I may have been confused when setting up the site initially although it seemed to work ok when it was V4 but then I wasn't trying to display the cart contents on every page.

I'll have a go with changing the cgi url. Demon seem to have a rather more complicated setup than other hosting companies or is this a common problem?

Thanks again for your helpful look at my situation here,
Penny
www.lavenderlifestyles.co.uk

OK. More information. According to this page from demon

http://www.demoninternet.biz/helpdes...usingcgis.html

your cgi calls should be of the form (you'll have to mouse-over to see the full url as this forum shortens them):

http://cgi.www.yourdomain.co.uk/cgi-...your-script.pl

If you compare this with what you have it looks like you're calling the scripts from demon's domain and not your own.

More details can be found on the page I've linked to above.

Mike

[Penny]

Right. Have changed the web settings to:
http://cgi.www.lavenderlifestyles.co...estyles.co.uk/

situation is now slightly worse as cart looks empty even when using view cart but when you get to checkout, cart contents re-appear.

Looking back through my notes from 2003, this configuration failed then too. Perhaps one solution will be to change to a different web hosting company who more actively support Actinic software. Any suggestions?

Penny

[BeerHunter]

Hi Penny,

Sorry I cannot help with your issue but I thought you might want to know that when I added to trolley the "confirm" "update" check-out" buttons were invalid images (only displays the infamous red "x").

Oh, and the link in the previous post doesn't work.

[Penny]

Hi Beerhunter,
I'm just going to stick my head in a bucket now.

Thanks for taking the time for letting me know about these things. More realistically I'll put the settings back to where they worked almost and then remove the cart contents side panel until I can find a solution.

In view of what olderscott said earlier, I think the demon configuration will prevent the shopping cart display working correctly and changing web host will be the way to go.

Penny
www.lavenderlifestyles.co.uk

[Nadeem]

Hi Penny,

I don't know if you have seen, but we have got a knowledge base article on this. Please check the following link.

Kind Regards

[Penny]

Thank you Nadeem but changing the perl script as suggested didn't work either. The cart summary on the shopping pages remained empty and the cart summary on the view cart and checkout pages also became blank.

Penny

[Toby B]

Hi Penny,

Can I just confirm the issue?

The only time you get to see the cart summary is when you're either in the "view cart" or "checkout" pages? When you browse the store through your sections nothing is displayed?

If that's the case it looks like your using different templates fro your overall layout, view cart layout and checkout layout (see Design | Options | Layouts)

Or am I barking up the wrong tree?

[Ian_W]

Tony - I think Penny has altered her layout until she can find a solution.

Penny - I think your problem is url based - your URL is different in the cart as in the rest of the site - maybe the information in the basket is not being carried between the two URL's. Stick it all on one URL to try, and I reckon the contents will display just fine.

[Toby B]

Ah right,

Well the problem could where the cart cookie is stored for cgi.www.YOURADDRESS.co.uk and the web pages are served to www.YOURADDRESS.co.uk, as they don't match the
cart cookie is not available to the page.

You need to get the ISP to alias cgi.www.YOURADDRESS.co.uk/cgi-bin/ to
www.YOURADDRESS.co.uk/cgi-bin/ and then use http://www.YOURADDRESS.co.uk/cgi-bin/ in the network settings.

[Penny]

Thank you Toby and Ian,
yes, I had altered the templates until I've got time to work on this problem some more.

The aliasing solution sounds like the next thing to try. It may take a while to find the right person in Demon to set this up for me and I won't have time myself to fiddle with it until next week but I'll try it then and let you know the results.

Thank you again for all your input,
Penny

Ah right,

Well the problem could where the cart cookie is stored for cgi.www.YOURADDRESS.co.uk and the web pages are served to www.YOURADDRESS.co.uk, as they don't match the
cart cookie is not available to the page.

You need to get the ISP to alias cgi.www.YOURADDRESS.co.uk/cgi-bin/ to
www.YOURADDRESS.co.uk/cgi-bin/ and then use http://www.YOURADDRESS.co.uk/cgi-bin/ in the network settings.