Nasty problem with cart bounces and history

[ben_armstrong]

I have a problem with the bounce page of our actinic site as it fails to pick the correct URL from the history of the browser!

On the homepage of the site there is an iframe loading latest news and other useful information and if you enter the shopping cart from the homepage as some users do it picks up the url of the latest news instead of the parent page!

Needless to say I don't want users viewing just the iframe content without the rest of the homepage!
Is there any way around this?

Any ideas or solutions very welcome...
Thanks in advance.

[NormanRouxel]

I've seen similar wierd results with Internet Explorer 6 when I tried to use an IFRAME in a brochure page. The error went away when I changed my system date to the next day, indicating it was a browser caching problem.

Try using a different browser (Mozilla / Opera) and see if the problem is still there.

Norman

[ben_armstrong]

NOt solved just yet...

Thanks Norman,
Unfortunately the shopping basket page still redirects the browser to the recommended product page rather than back to the catalogue page. This also happens when the 'continue shopping' tab is clicked, in both IE6 and Mozilla 1.6.

Ben.

[cdicken]

Try adding

&ACTINIC_REFERRER=http://your.URL/acatalog/

onto the end of the link to the shopping cart. This should force Actinic to go back to the 'acatalog' folder after adding to cart.

[ben_armstrong]

Thanks - getting closer to solving it...

I'm sure that this will work as a way of getting the user back to the front of the catalog but ideally what is required is a way of getting them back to the previous page.
It looks like the history is picking up the iframe as an intermediate page (even though it is not) and confusing the path backwards.
Any ideas? - as I cannot justify removing the iframe...
Thanks.

[cdicken]

Is the link to the shopping cart actually within the IFRAME or is it outside the IFRAME?

Can I see a URL demonstrating the problem?

[ben_armstrong]

Link to shopping cart is outside the iframe.

demo url:
http://www.datapowertools.co.uk

The problem occurs when you go to the shopping basket from the homepage and then click continue shopping. It also does it if you add an item to the shopping basket - the bounce 'returns' you to the contents of the iframe as the main page.

Thanks,
Ben.

[cdicken]

How very frustrating.

I can see this in both IE6 and NN7. I see that the link to the shopping cart is actually on an *.asp page so I'm wondering if that means Actinic is battling to find the right page to take people to.

The problem is that once Actinic gets an incorrect REFPAGE= value in the online session file, the only way to get rid of it is to purge session files on the server.

The really stupid thing is that it seems arbitrary why Actinic would pick just '/acatalog/Recommended_Product.asp' to become the REFPAGE - why not any other IFRAME on the page?

I think a more expert eye than mine needs to take a look at it. I recommend registering an email support query at http://www.actinic.co.uk/support/register.htm and see if the team can shed any light.

[ben_armstrong]

Big thanks...

Thank you!
I will let you know of any developments...
Ben.

[ben_armstrong]

A SOLUTION of sorts


Using the following in the .asp content of the iframe, any time it is displayed on its own (becoming the top location) it goes back two steps in the history (skipping the .pl that sent it there in the first place)
NOT ideal but it works.

<!--
if (top.location == self.location) { //if page is not in its frameset
//top.location.href = "http://www.domain.com/acatalog/index.html"
history.go(-2);
}
//-->

Thought I'd post the work around in case anyone else came across the problem.
Please note it hasn't been tested thoroughly so post any errors you find.

Ben.