Very slow checkout

[Jenny]

With the reseller account I have I cannot add a new site to anything but the new 2003 windows or linux servers. existing sites are on windows 2k which seem to be fine (today).. Long saga.. Can't just move because of this bespoke affiliate software that has been installed or at least I don't know enough perl to do it..
Jenny

[wfl]

Jon

It works fine here at 12:58.

I don't think the fact that you can't see it has anything to do with your host server.

Perhaps you should look at your PCs. Quite probably the corporate firewall is preventing you from seeing it at work. As for your home link well.....

I could see it at home on a BT 64K ISDN connection and I can see it at work on a Demon Broadband connection.

Have you cleared out the cached pages on your PCs?

Do you have a proxy server on the corporate network that has cached pages from yesterday.

Do you run cyberpatrol at work?

Do you have personal firewall running on your PC at home.

[wfl]

Jenny

W2003 is starting to perform better for us with ActiveState Perl. We are still not 100% happy and are continuing to test.

We are also going to run a side by side comparison on a W2K box next week. Will let you know how it gets on.

PS Chris D. Any chance of dividing this thread?

We have two entirely different subjects being discussed.

[jonwilliams]

Alistair

In answer to your questions:

Have you cleared out the cached pages on your PCs? => I have done a forced refresh (ctrl-F5) - is that enough?

Do you have a proxy server on the corporate network that has cached pages from yesterday. => Sorry, don't know, it's a big company where the day job is...wouldn't know who to ask.

Do you run cyberpatrol at work? => Don't know (see above)

Do you have personal firewall running on your PC at home. => No, but I was strongly considering getting one after getting infected with the msblast worm recently despite my Norton Antivirus, plus an increasing annoyance over pop-up ads, especially ones that invite my children to go and see natalie showing off with her webcam! (Perhaps even a third thread subject here?)

Does that help?

Thanks
Jon

[harlequin]

copy of email sent offline to john @ global

hi jon, here is a link to your site uploaded onto our server.

http://www.dev1.actinichosts.net/index.html

ive got to be honest and say that alastair was correct to say that on the face of it the issue lies with your hardcoded links and i know you that you are thinking about the structure of how you lay out your sections..but again i wouldnt be too hasty about re-thinking it, as i think there is some possible benefits to the way you are going to lay out your site based on the fact that you
have replicated products in different ranges...and all it needs to work is the correct pages to link to as coded by you.

in actinic there is a simple method to see what the page names are whilst you are editing the catalog, go to view,business settings and on the options tab you will tick the box for 'show page names whilst editing catalog'. this will allow you at least to see the page names in actinic you are trying to link to.

as an example, on the site on our server, from the front page, go into the section for india, and whereas your link to indian incense doesnt work, mine does, the reason is i linked it to the correct html (blahblah/acatalog/inc.html) page, you havent..

as far as i can see, the site is now working, even on your live site the images are displaying in the cart whereas at 5am this morning they werent...is this an example of your sometimes it works, sometimes it doesnt?

If it starts having problems showing images in the
cart logo again, or starts not letting you get to pages via the drop downs, (which use cgi also) then it would seem to be your webhosts cgi scripts either timing out too
quickly for their server load..or the server itself isnt correctly
configured..

at the moment whilst your webhost holds out, look closely at your links, get them right, and all will be working and a credit to you..

please let me know if i can be of any further assistance...if you ARE still having trouble, you may be in for more ahead...specially as you get busier, i have just been here before with hosts who have got too many sites on 1 server...or have them optimally configured NOT for actinic,

for your info, on the speed issue, at
http://www.netmechanic.com/toolbox/html-code.htm type into the box there
http://www.globaholic.com/acatalog/storetop.html

notice the results for page load times...almost identical in their slowness to my http://www.dev1.actinichosts.net/acatalog/storetop.html

so i contend there is no speed difference for you on a unix server against a well configured windows one.

hence, my argument has been that you were hastily advised to dump windows when that was not nescessarily the right course to start 'advising' you to do....and shame on those who would seek to poo poo my posts just because it raises questions about common assertions that are based around this 'linux is better than windows bunkum' and upsets the apple cart so to speak...

hey, dont get mad, this is just my opinion... (that bit is for you all and wasnt in johns direct email..)

[wfl]

Jon

I have looked again and found that your front page links are are not working because the login script fails.

It worked me because I have already found my way in here;

http://www.globaholic.com/acatalog/ind.html

Once past the front page I can browse fine.

So we are still at your configuration of Actinic.

I don't know what you have done but the script should let you through but the resultant page doesn't seem to exist. Perhaps you should look at your path from /cgi-bin to /acatalog.

Personally though I have ditched the script from the front page into the catalog and hard coded a direct link. If you don't do that then search engines don't see the link.

[wfl]

Steve

I don't think we should be getting excited about platforms. Whether anyone is a Windows, Unix or Linux fan is neither here nor there.

We have a problem at the moment with V6 on Solaris whereas I have V5 flying on it.

We have Actinic working fine on W2K but we are having some issues with it on W2003. But heck, W2003 has only been out the box 6 weeks so we haven't all finished beta testing it for Bill yet.

All the problems we have at the moment stem from Actinic's use of perl in V6 with the possible exception of MS perl on W2003

The point is we need to pool our knowledge and get V6 working well independant of platform.

Once everyone has finished cleaning up after msblast there is supposed to be large MS patch for W2003 this weekend so let's see if that helps.

[garyhay]

Steve and others.

I may advise people to dump MS hosting in favour of IX hosting as in my experience it just works better.

I have also posted messages telling MS users that YOUR hosting is optimised for Actinic is is a good option.

In general I have nothing against MS and in fact dont understand what all the MS bashing is for, if it was not for them most of us would probably still be electricians/engineers or whatever.

If you have a snapshot of http://www.dev1.actinichosts.net/index.html maybe you could send it to me and I can test it out on set up just to see what happens.

[jonwilliams]

Continued thanks to all....

Alistair's comment about the login script not working on the homepage prompted me to try logging in with an ID and password I had set up. It logged me in ok and took me to the main catalog page (blabla/acatalog/storetop.html) but none of the graphics were there at all.

As the URL of that page when logged in is blabla/cgi-bin/bb000001.pl, does that mean it is back to a path from /cgi-bin/ to /acatalog/ issue?

The path from cgi-bin to acatalog bit in the server details in the network setup says:

../httpdocs/acatalog/

The /cgi-bin/ and /httpdocs/ directories are both at the root.

And if the paths are incorrect, how come the network setup wizard sets up the above settings and they test OK?

I feel we maybe getting closer....

Jon

PS Gary - the snapshot is in my yahoo briefcase - I will email you the link. Cheers

[harlequin]

hi gary, as far as i can tell, the website at www.globaholic.com is now working correctly. It is as alistair suggested more a problem with hard coded links to sections rather than an actinic or platform error...

HOWEVER, looking at johns post above, it seems that this site is working intermittently, it may well be that the site is working now, but will struggle with cgi again later when other websites on that server get busy....we shall have to wait and see...

If john doesnt mind i will pass on the site to you, but when i got it, i imported my network settings, didnt even do a preview, and it uploaded first time, no errors, and it works perfectly on mine, but then i noticed the live website was working fully by then as well...

so if the hosting holds up, and john re-codes his links then i think his issues are sorted..

john ? shall i forward this snapshot to gary or are you ok for now? Its only right i ask.

oh, one thing you might gary to look at as i know he knows his templates..., is the javascript error that is occuring inside the catalog pages, this is not stopping the store or any functionality on the face of it but is im sure annoying and potentially worrying to newbies shopping there...im not so clever with working out browser errors/javascript ...

steve...

[Jenny]

Hi Steve, jon sent me a snapshot but I have been out most of the day and have just got back. Shall I take your snapshot or is Gary going to look. Quite happy whatever. Up to you Jon, or I can look as well.
Jenny

[jonwilliams]

Steve

I have sent Gary the link to the snapshot. And yes, I would like to solve the annoying script errors.

I reiterate though that the site is not working properly. I know those hard-coded links don't work and I will change them, but it is the non-working actinic-generated links from the drop down menu and the brochure fragment images on the home page which I want to work as that is key to the sites functionality.

Thanks as ever.

Jon

PS Jenny - yes, please look at the snapshot, the more the merrier.

PPS going for the world record here....when we get to 100 replies and 1000 views on this thread, I am expecting a certificate from actinic. Oh, and a very large drink from me for all you Sherlock Holmes out there!

[harlequin]

i think john that whatever you are browsing the site on is causing your java and cgi routed links to fail, it is working for me now, as of 16.57...

you did ask before if ctrl+f5 was enough to empty your cache / refresh a page?

sometimes its not enough..

if you are using internet explorer, go to tools>options>general tab, and in the temporary internet files area. click the delete files button

also tick the box and delete all offline content when it offers this to you.

then click the settings button next to that, and tick the box for 'check for a newer version of this page every visit'

that might clear your cache and allow you to see your site working..

close internet explorer and open a fresh instance of it and then try your front page...fingers crossed..

steve

[garyhay]

Jon

You do know that a lot of Actinic variables are missing from the site?

[jonwilliams]

Steve

Did as you suggested (whilst standing on one leg reciting lines from The Matrix ) but still no good. Thanks anyway.

Jon