What is required for cart contents to be saved?

[pharry]

FYI - I don't use customer accounts. The cart contents are saved for my customers probably 98% of the time. However, every now and then I have a customer tell me they came back the next day to finish their order and found the cart was empty. What causes this if they haven't checked out? I want to understand how this works, so I can give an answer about why it wasn't saved, and what to do differently to save it. I know that the contents are saved on the server in session files. And I know the contents are emptied after a customer returns to our site following checkout. But what deletes them in between? Or maybe doesn't save them to begin with?

[NormanRouxel]

Look in Web / Configure Expiry Periods / Shoppping carts, where the default is usually 3 hours.

[pharry]

Mine is set at 168 hours (7 days).

[pharry]

I just had a thought. The cart is saved in a session file using the IP address as the name. Does this mean that folks w/ dial-up, who get a different IP address each time they dial in, will not be able to access their carts under the new IP address?

If that is true, then I'm surprised I don't have more questions about empty carts.

[wjcampbe]

totally wrong post - I blame the whisky

[Mike Hughes]

As far as I know the cart isn't linked to the IP address, it's just used as part of the name of the session file.

The cart is linked to the user by the cookie on his PC so if the same customer came back the next day on a different IP address it should still be Ok as long as the cookie still exists.

Mike

[NormanRouxel]

A quick and dirty way to examine the cookie is to put the following into the Description field of a dummy product.

!!<<script type="text/javascript">
document.write(unescape(document.cookie.replace(/;/g,'<p>')));
</script>>!!

From this you'll see something like

ACTINIC_CART=192Z168Z0Z12A1139971708B2884

where the 'Z' represents the '.' in the IP address and ties in with Mike's explanation. Just bung a .session onto that and you've got the approriate session file.

[pharry]

Mike, this makes a whole lot more sense to me, because I don't get many complaints about disappearing carts. If they were linked to the IP address, I would think I would get lots of questions/complaints. I suspected that a cookie was involved somehow, so for those folks that don't allow cookies, their carts would not be visible the next day.

[pharry]

A quick and dirty way to examine the cookie is to put the following into the Description field of a dummy product.

!!<<script type="text/javascript">
document.write(unescape(document.cookie.replace(/;/g,'<p>')));
</script>>!!

From this you'll see something like

ACTINIC_CART=192Z168Z0Z12A1139971708B2884

where the 'Z' represents the '.' in the IP address and ties in with Mike's explanation. Just bung a .session onto that and you've got the approriate session file.

Well that's pretty cool. I know I'm going to sound really dumb here, but I assume that only works if the customer "purchases" this dummy product, right? Or is there a way to automatically add that product to all orders so the info is available if needed?

[Guest]

Hi Pat,

I am looking into this for you and will post back with an update at the earliest.

[Guest]

When any Actinic Script is called, a session file is created. The name of the session file is usually based on the IP address. When the script completes it sends the session file name in a cookie to the browser.The browser saves the cookie for the server that sent it, e.g.www.actinic.co.uk.

The next time the browser contacts the same server it will send the cookie.So long as the cookie is returned to the server then the same session file will be used.(Alternatively it won't send the cookie if the target server is secure.actinic.co.uk as this would be regarded as a third-party cookie).

When the cookie is not returned the scripts will create a new session file based on the IP address.The last bit is important, it means that if the customer has deleted/cleaned out their cookie from the internet explorer, then on the shop front, it will create a new session file, which of course will be an empty cart.

[pharry]

Thank you very much for you thorough answer! This information helps tremendously!