BIG shipping problem with offline orders that exceed shipping tables!

[TraceyHand]

I've been brewing myself up for this post for a week!

Both Nik and I use "shipping by weight" and have a cap on our overseas shipping weights, using 'do not allow excess' in the shipping setup.

Often, we get telephone orders for overseas customers who wish to place a larger order than our websites allow. This isn't a problem for us as we don't mind quoting the shipping and then processing them manually.

We've always done this and it's never been a problem. We just override the shipping price during the offline order process.....UNTIL 9.0.3

9.0.3 is NOT happy with this process at all.
Doesn't matter if the offline order is placed using the 'New Order' tab or the 'old' way, it always crashes.
Using the New Order tab, it crashes as soon as you try to enter a shipping price and does not show a shipping method (airmail etc)
Using the old method (Operations > New Order) it allows you to process the order ok, although it too doesn't show the shipping method dropdown/name, and lets you go all the way through to processing the offline payment.
All is fine until you need to go BACK into the order, after completion, and it just gives an empty error warning (the ! triangle) and crashes.

It happens EVERY time we try to place an offline order that would exceed the shipping limits (which is, quite frankly, *censors self* rubbish!)

There's a workaround. To go into the Settings > BUsiness Settings > Shipping and Handling and UNcheck the 'do not allow excess', changing it to something else while you process the order (and changing it back again after)

While this does fix the problem (although not for an order already placed and crashing the system), it's a PITA to have to do this every time and will get forgotten (worst case scenario, you forget to change it BACK)

It used to work fine in V8 but it doesn't now.

Has anyone else experienced this?

[TraceyHand]

More problems re. this offline order that caused me to post this.
Actinic won't let me 'complete' it

For some reason, it'd moved to my 'completed' tab when it was anything but!!
It was Full Payment Received but not shipped, nothing printed etc but, somehow, it'd moved to the 'completed' tab and it's only the fact that I had realised I hadn't processed it that sent me looking for it or it could have EASILY been overlooked!

I was able to ship the orderlines and print the invoice manually but the 'Complete' option was greyed out (presumably because it was already IN the 'completed' tab)

NOT good!

[Mike Hughes]

C'mon admit it. You broke it.

First you tell it it must not allow an order over the weight limit.
Then you force through an order over the limit.

I'm not surprised it got upset and threw a wobbly.

Mike

[TraceyHand]

C'mon admit it. You broke it.

yup, I did
Well, tbh, upgrading to V9 broke it.

It's reasonable to expect limits on the online ordering side that can be overridden when processing an offline order though.
It's no different to quoting a special rate for shipping or taking special orders etc

It used to do it happily, with no complaints, and it's not just one site that is throwing a wobbly either.
It's another one of those things that used to work in V8 but doesn't in V9.

[TraceyG]

Hi Tracey,

I can't recreate the problem I'm afraid so you might want to get someone in support to take a look at your snapshot.

[TraceyHand]

hmmm
ok
will do
Would have thought it was easy to recreate due to it happening on two sites but it's probably some other variable making it happen or not.
Will submit a ticket and get a snapshot sorted
Cheers

[animal dreams]

I'm having exactly the same problm but using cart value based shipping.

Not sure the upgrade was worth it!

[Rich Brady]

Seems like this very similar to the problem I'm having:

Morning all,

I amended an order in V9.04 yesterday. I added another item to an order made last week, it the apply and OK prompts and the order moved from "completed" into the "pending" tab as you'd expect.

I proceeded to open up the order to make the additional payment, but a "Shipping & Handling" error box popped up, with "OK" being the only option.

Click it and you get the default MS "Would you like to send the error... blah, blah" and Actinic closes.

I reopened Actinic and noticed that the shipping field was empty. I've tried compacting databases, deleting and undeleting the order, completing the order again, exporting to try and rectify it, but I'm no better off.

I'm about to try an compact and repair in Access, but wondered if anyone new of a thread that may be of some help.

I've done a few searches, but don't seem to be coming up with anything relevant.

Cheers,

Rich

[animal dreams]

Hi Rich,

I had a related problem during 9.0.4 beta testing (and Tracey before that), but no fix yet!

The only workaround Actinic could offer was to make the shipping class available offline only (right click > properties).

Not sure if will work for you.