Using ProductCart - Cookies Causing Purchase Problem

Print Page | Close Window

Cookies Causing Purchase Problem

Printed From: ProductCart E-Commerce Solutions
Category: ProductCart
Forum Name: Using ProductCart
Forum Description: Running your store with ProductCart
URL: https://forum.productcart.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=3149
Printed Date: 01-November-2024 at 1:27am
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 12.04 - http://www.webwizforums.com

Topic: Cookies Causing Purchase Problem

Posted By: Stuffington
Subject: Cookies Causing Purchase Problem
Date Posted: 27-October-2009 at 12:36pm

Hello all. At first we thought this would be a fairly uncommon problem, however it has become a rather large problem.

I understand there are many who may have browser issues, but never-the-less it is costing us sales.

Is anyone familiar with this error? Does anyone know a work around for the error?
Your time and help is greatly appreciated.

Thank you!

Please see the next post for the error

file:///C:%5CDOCUME%7E1%5Ccsumner%5CLOCALS%7E1%5CTemp%5Cmsohtmlclip1%5C01%5Cclip_colorschememapping.xml - -

Replies:

Posted By: Stuffington
Date Posted: 27-October-2009 at 12:37pm

Oops! I have no idea what happened up there!

This is the error:
"Unfortunately you cannot purchase on this store because "cookies" are disabled in your browser. Please use a browser that has cookies enabled or consult your browser's Help section for instructions on how to enable "cookies".

We apologize for the inconvenience.

Posted By: whizzinpc
Date Posted: 27-October-2009 at 1:52pm

Not many people will use browsers with cookies disabled... and i think most shopping carts will have the same issue. It's nice that the customer gets a message about it... you can have a more detailed message with instructions to fix it instead of them finding it in the help section. Its better then getting a microsoft error.

Posted By: Stuffington
Date Posted: 27-October-2009 at 2:02pm

Thank you very much for your reply Whizzinpc.

I think a more detailed error page is a great idea and is definitely in my list now of possible solutions.

Could anyone tell me the reason why ProductCart requires cookies in order for transactions to take place?

I could dig through the code but if someone knows off the bat that would be great.

Posted By: JoltDigital
Date Posted: 27-October-2009 at 2:31pm

For maintaining the session state for one. By default asp uses a cookie to store the session ID of a visitor. There are some other methods to generate and store the session ID such as using a db table however then you are always going to have to use other coding techniques such a querystrings to pass the session ID from one page to another.

-------------
http://www.joltdigital.com/host_pc.asp - JoltDigital Inc.
1-888-785-5658
Premium ProductCart Hosting

Posted By: Stuffington
Date Posted: 27-October-2009 at 2:43pm

So I would definitely have my work cut out for me if I were to change the cookie to a session variable.

Ok guys, well this has answered all my questions.

Thanks for your enlightenment here - what a great community!

Posted By: Matt
Date Posted: 27-October-2009 at 2:47pm

It is currently a session variable. However, if you disable cookies in your browser you are also disabling session cookies/variables.

Posted By: Matt
Date Posted: 27-October-2009 at 2:56pm

If your store is on an unsupported platform, then it could cause the customer's session id to change frequently from page to page. This could trigger a false positive in the cookie checking. However, in such as case the cart would also be lost and they would need to start over, which is a larger issue. If you find yourself logged out of your control panel after only a few minutes, and this issue comes up often, then your server is not properly managing sessions.

Posted By: Stuffington
Date Posted: 27-October-2009 at 3:01pm

Ok Matt - thanks for the heads up.

I am going to do some testing today regarding this.

Posted By: Stuffington
Date Posted: 27-October-2009 at 3:25pm

it does look like this is a server problem.

I have checked the website in I.E., Firefox and Safari and it is happening in all.
I did set security settings to low to accept all cookies.

If someone could be so kind to try adding an item at our company to the shopping cart just for absolute confirmation I would really be grateful.

here is our url: stuffingtonbear.com

thanks guys!

Posted By: Matt
Date Posted: 27-October-2009 at 3:31pm

It is working for me from here

Posted By: Stuffington
Date Posted: 27-October-2009 at 3:40pm

Thanks for checking Matt.

This good news is bad news here :(

The default settings in all my browsers are giving me the error, i set security to allow all cookies and still receive the error.

Posted By: Matt
Date Posted: 27-October-2009 at 3:51pm

If it is just your pc then maybe you have some anti virus software involved. If you are getting reports from customers then you should open a ticket. It is really odd, but I do not have any issues when I am shopping on your store (in any browser)

Posted By: Stuffington
Date Posted: 27-October-2009 at 3:54pm

I tried making a new account to see if I could trigger this error again or get passed it.
When I click "My Account" then enter an email address and choose the option "No, I want to create a new account I then click "Login" and it goes to a page stating my shopping cart is empty.

I recently took over this project and am just getting familiar with this cart software, the old web master was let go.

Is this normal behavior when creating a new account in productcart?

Posted By: Stuffington
Date Posted: 27-October-2009 at 4:07pm

Update:

When I got a page where the only option is a "Buy" button; the item is added to the cart successfully. This is: Clothing->Shirts and Pants->Buy

When Choosing the Category: "Animals" then the sub category "bears" I click on one of the bears, select a color then i select the "Add to cart" button - this triggers the cookies error.

So to sum it all up:
If I try "Add to cart" I receive the cookies error.
If I have the option to click "Buy" I do not receive this error and the item is added to the cart successfully.

My conclusion is that the cart software has been setup incorrectly. This is an assumption at this point.

My main 2 problems are not being able to create an account and not having the ability to "Add to cart"; though I can click on "Buy" and the item is in fact added to the cart.

This is a long thread at this point and would just like to thank all of you here for your input through this and the extent in which you have helped me.

Posted By: Matt
Date Posted: 27-October-2009 at 4:51pm

I get that as well. It is no cookie issue. There is probably a mismatch of files or a customization that is causing this issue. You will be best served by opening a ticket.

Posted By: tornadodesign
Date Posted: 28-October-2009 at 10:21pm

We tracked down the issue for you. The problem was due to the store URL being set incorrectly. It was set to http://www.stuffington.com when it needed to be set to http://www.stuffingtonbear.com.

Thanks,

Tom Chapin
Tornado Design

Posted By: Stuffington
Date Posted: 29-October-2009 at 3:27pm

Thanks Tom!

This was indeed the issue. The URL was incorrect site wide. This problem is now fixed and I appreciate your time and help!

Posted By: Wonderfulnews
Date Posted: 18-September-2012 at 6:43pm

I am wondering if there is more then one reason for this error. I too am getting this message msg.asp?message=212

http://www.earlyimpact.com/eistore/productcart/pc/msg.asp?message=212

The error is especially prevalent on chrome and old safari versions - you can't add a single item to the cart. I have gotten the message a few times on firefox but a refresh and the issue is resolved........but never an issue with IE.

Obviously the cookies are enabled on all these browsers that I have been testing with.

Any thoughts on this? Thanks all!

Posted By: Guests
Date Posted: 18-September-2012 at 9:34pm

I've only ever hit this when in the thick of development and doing things radically different than anything normal. I'm in Chrome all the time, all day long every day working on ProductCart stuff and have never encountered this under any remotely normal testing scenario. I'm going to hazard a guess from experience here that I encounter it in the thick of development when I might still have a cart array in memory (pcCartArray), but no longer in the database (because we wiped out data or debugging our way through a customization or some such).

By any chance, do you have your site set up so that is always resolves under HTTPS, but have your store constants set to http://...? I could maybe see this happening if IIS 7 wasn't configured correctly for session (server-side) cookies.

Posting a link to your site might help us get an idea of what's wrong?