Announcement

**gary in jersey** · 08-Jan-2006, 06:28 PM

Hi

your server will be storeing these products in old pages, ive found even a site refresh wont help,
so i deleted the actalog folder from the server then refreshed.
if you have a very large site your prob best locating the pages that are causing the problems and only deleting them before refresh..

**oldhasbeen** · 08-Jan-2006, 06:47 PM

Hi Gary

Thanks for your input - that seems rather drastic and rather impossible for us at the moment! I can see logic in what you've suggested and that would help in the normal course of events if it were a small number of pages, but we've several hundred pages on the go at the moment with sale stuff and orders rocking in every few seconds - it's hard enough to keep on top of the constant uploading to keep the sale quantities up to date.

Sod's law isn't it - this is about the only time of year that having the pages current is really critical, but we don't have time to delete every page off the server each time we upload.

Thanks though - will bear it in mind for the future if we ever need to fix a few pages!

**Duncan Allan** · 09-Jan-2006, 09:22 AM

The same is true when search engines cache the pages.
I have found several references to searches I have made when customers have asked where the items are.
Some cached pages are a year old as the links and references have been changed several times over the incarnations of the web site.
Fortunately these customers made orders but with the old pages drawing a blank for some people will inevitably go on browsing.

Duncan

**george** · 09-Jan-2006, 10:02 AM

Scenario?

I'm halfway through ordering four items from you.

Get `interuped` at work and have to close your pages asap.

Get back on at lunchtime.

PC remembers the original first couple of items that I added to the cart. (Despite the fact that someone else has since ordered the first one and its now `removed` from your site).

Add the last two, fill in the addy, etc, pay, etc, click `done`.

That maybe whats happening? (Same thing allows someone to order something thats `out of stock`).

**oldhasbeen** · 09-Jan-2006, 10:36 AM

Hi guys

We don't appear to have problems with the search engine scenario so hopefully our redirect page is dealing properly with these!

The "interupted" or frequent visitor is more the culprit - we have thousands of repeat customers who regularly order so the vast majority will have cached pages on their puters. Despite posting information about refreshing both in our sale announcement and on the site, quite a few just see the word "sale" and pay no attention!

What bugs me though is that actinic spends so much time "checking and fluffing" (up to 10 minutes each time for us!), but when the actual upload starts you can see that it's only sending the changed pages.

So if the "updated" pages have been uploaded successfully (presumably deleted products are removed from the database), I don't understand why it can't pick up or recognise that an item has been added to the cart which no longer exists (and perhaps pop up a warning saying something like: "The product you are trying to purchase may have sold out since you last viewed the website - please click your browser's refresh button to ensure you are viewing the most up to date page").

Methinks I expect too much (as usual!) - but wouldn't it be nice?!!

**george** · 09-Jan-2006, 10:46 AM

Let me know if you want me to place a dummy order to see if thats what happens. (Make an item orderable, I'll begin to place the order adding said item, you remove delete upload etc, then I'll continue with the order to see if it `goes through` okay...)

**oldhasbeen** · 09-Jan-2006, 05:28 PM

Hi George

No need, but thanks for the offer - I did exactly that myself (see opening thread) and it definitely lets you to add removed products to the cart and proceed through check out - even products that were removed hours before.

If you've successfully refreshed the website, what happens to the products you've deleted on the server? It seems they just lurk around causing mayhem until every customer in christendom who's ever visited that particular page clears their pc out (which some never do) or clicks refresh (which again some never do).

Could this possibly be a server issue? I'm not a techie so don't look under the bonnet, but if this could be caused by the server not doing something on a regular enough basis then we've serious cause to move hosts!

**I-CC** · 09-Jan-2006, 07:42 PM

You could try a Meta refresh or something like that...

<META http-equiv="EXPIRES" CONTENT="TUES, 31 DEC 1996 12:00:00 GMT">

This is not very sweet or very professional, but when placed within your primary template, will (in most cases it should) force the visitors browser to get a 'now' copy of the web page concerned, as the instruction is telling it that it is out of date always, so when ever it looks in its cache at that page, it says it is out of date so get it now, and so on it goes.

This will mean though that every page is forced to be loaded and never from a cache on someones browser, and really only to be used in extreme cases of a site being updated so very often...

If that does not provide a viable solution, then a number of solution are available at the server level for cache and no-cache directives, but you would need to speak with your host about that...

**fleetwood** · 10-Jan-2006, 12:00 PM

One thing I have recently noticed is that if we change the price of a product, and upload, yet the customer still has the old page cached (showing the old price), the item shows at the new price when added to the basket.
Now I haven't conducted any solid tests yet, but assuming this is so, and it wasn't just a fluke, maybe you could do something similar with stock control.
Try setting stock control on and quantity to zero for products that have sold out (even if they are hidden), and upload, and then see what happens when you try and order the product from an old cached page.
Its worth a go!

Martin

**oldhasbeen** · 10-Jan-2006, 12:51 PM

Hi Guys

Techno - as you say, a solution but not a very satisfactory one and rather like taking a hammer to crack a nut. Our hosting company is not contactable so if it's a server issue there's not much point trying to take it up with them - hence my earlier point about possibly moving!

Martin - a possible solution! Only on sale items do we run a visual stock countdown in the product description with a maximum number that can be ordered in the details tab. Normally when we've sold the last item, I just hide the product - will have to give it a go and see if that fixes it.

Won't be back on the maintenance pc until later - will let you know how I get on.

**oldhasbeen** · 10-Jan-2006, 01:26 PM

Hi Guys

Techno - as you say, a solution but not a very satisfactory one and rather like taking a hammer to crack a nut. Our hosting company is not contactable so if it's a server issue there's not much point trying to take it up with them - hence my earlier point about possibly moving!

Martin - a possible solution! Only on sale items do we run a visual stock countdown in the product description with a maximum number that can be ordered in the details tab. Normally when we've sold the last item, I just hide the product - will have to give it a go and see if that fixes it.

Won't be back on the maintenance pc until later - will let you know how I get on.

**oldhasbeen** · 10-Jan-2006, 09:19 PM

Back again - eyes like organ stops but still slogging away!

Don't know why some of my posts keep coming up twice, so apologies for that - I only hit the submit button once, honestly guv!

Anyway, have tried replicating the problem over 4 pc's now (2 on shared broadband through a router, 1 completely independant broadband and 1 sad old dial up) and the results are not satisfactory.

Methinks we've got a major problem with our hosting company. Too many things don't tally up.

Here we go again!

Announcement

Ordering stuff that's not there!

Ordering stuff that's not there!

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