If you reach any (even moderate) level of traffic, the store will likely experience timeout-related errors, possibly at the worst point possible - in the midst of your checkout process.  I speak from experience with a number of stores that started on Access and we eventually had no option but to upgrade to MSSQL.  Best choice for such an upgrade is mailto:mark@cognecy.com - mark@cognecy.com .

 

As for Godaddy, search the forum and you will find plenty of rants (inluding my own) as to why it is not typically successful over the long run to host with them.  Notwithstanding the fact that they overload their servers, don't have the appropriate server components for the upload/resize feature of the product admin tools, nobody on their staff has any knowledge or gives a rip about your application needs.  I feel strongly that it is in your best interest to host with someone who actually is familiar with and will respond to your PC questions.

 

With that said, you need to do a couple things: 

First you need to upload a web.config file to the root of the site so that you will get detailed error messages, instead of the 500 error.  Then you can post the real error and we can help further.

 

The web.config needs to contain this:

<system.webServer>
<httpErrors errorMode="Detailed" />
</system.webServer>

 

 

Second, you need to refer to this page http://wiki.earlyimpact.com/how_to/show_raw_errors?s%5b%5d=opendb&s%5b%5d=asp - http://wiki.earlyimpact.com/how_to/show_raw_errors?s[]=opendb&s[]=asp  and comment out the first “on error resume next” statement in includes/opendb.asp

 

With those steps completed, you should get some sort of error message that may reveal the actual problem.

 

I will be very short and to the point on my reply (which is very unusual for me - lol) ...

 

I have been working with ProductCart for a number of years and there are many other developers on this forum that have been here much longer than I of whom I know will give the same advice ... Do Not Host Your Serious Web Business with GoDaddy (or NoDaddy as another developer here affectionately calls them.)

 

There are just way too many inherent problems with trying to run a DB/Application based software with this host. 

 

Sorry to be so blunt on this topic but I have seen too many new stores try to host there and have nothing but problems.  Many of us developers, myself included, will not even work on a site if it is hosted with GoDaddy. 

 

You will be doing your business a favor, as well as give your self a head start to being successful on the web, by hosting with any one of the fine developer/hosts here on the forum that are familiar with the ProductCart Application and what it takes to keep it running smoothly.

 

One other thing to consider it to move away from Access ... your site really needs to be running SQL server for your database - especially if you plan on taking credit cards.  You simply cannot secure an Access DB to the level it needs to be for running an online store (despite what some may tell you, it is not possible).  Whatever you do, NEVER run an SQL DB with Godaddy.

 

Did I say I was going to be short and to the point?  Well, I tried anyway.

 

If you would like to talk in depth on this subject send me an IM with your contact details and I would be happy to give more specifics and advice on getting your store up and running smoothly from day 1.

 

sounds like your "productcartfolder.asp" may not have been correctly configured.

 

This is too much of a  guessing game without at least seeing the site.  I'd suggest you either post the URL to your store here, file a support ticket with Early Impact, or engage someone who can dig in and help.  (If you were hosting with someone who knows and understands ProductCart, you would not be stuck at this point - your host could likely resolve the issue in moments.  Since you are playing with nodaddy, obviously they are not going to help.)

 

Secondly, concerning your edits to the opendb.asp, a couple points.

- I note that the WIKI page assumed that the reader understands how to comment ASP code, and the choice (/*  */) you made was incorrect.  I have updated the WIKI to indicate that the means by which one comments out ASP statements is to place a single quote ' mark at the beginning line.  So to comment out "on error resume next" would look like this:

'on error resume next

 

- However, I'm not sure how you reached this conclusion, but you commented out the wrong statement.  The instructions were to comment out the first instance in the file, and you attempted to comment out the similar statement in the CloseDB function.

 

You really might want at this point to get someone involved who knows how to go directly to the source of the problem and resolve whatever issues currently exist.  If you are staying at this host, probably the best choice is to file a support ticket.

 

You probably saw this Wiki article but just in case here is the post for GoDaddy:

http://wiki.earlyimpact.com/quickstart/godaddy?s%5b%5d=godaddy - http://wiki.earlyimpact.com/quickstart/godaddy?s[]=godaddy

 

Here is the warning in that post about NOT using GoDaddy:

NOTE: As of April, 2009, we are no longer able to say with certainty that ProductCart will work with GoDaddy! This is due to the fact that several customers have reported problems with the ability to access the XML Parser on their shared server, which is required for using UPS, FedEx and many of the Payment Gateways. Effective April 2, 2009, we recommend NOT using GoDaddy's shared hosting for your ProductCart store. If you decide to try them despite this warning, the following article should still be applicable.

 

Unfortunately, as has been mentioned above and in many other posts, GoDaddy is not ideal for hosting a Product Cart site. Early Impact cannot possibly support all of the issues that come up related to using unrecommended hosting services. The issues you are experiencing are with the hosting service, not with Product Cart. You should look to GoDaddy for hosting support.

 

Please here me (and the others). We are not tryig to be facetious but you really do get what you pay for. GoDaddy is very cheap and for an ecommerce site, that is NOT a good thing. You will spend more time (and money in wasted time) using them than you would paying a little more with a quality hosting service that supports Product Cart.

 

 

 

 

 

At this point, I would like to echo the comments others have made here about GoDaddy hosting (in hopes that others will benefit from the advise of all the rest of us here): In my experience, GoDaddy is no place for a business to host a site. They are ok for something like a vanity site, but a business site requires a host that understands applications such as ProductCart -- their are complexities here that the queue card-reading support idiot at GoDaddy can't handle. Like GBDG, we too simply refuse to work with anyone hosted at GoDaddy as they are just too much of a pain and really have no idea what they are doing with applications as complex as shopping carts such as ProductCart. Yeah, they are cheap, but then again they are also cheap (using both connotations of the word here). Is your business so cheap that you can't afford a decent host? There are many here, both hosting companies such as JoltDigital and "beautique" hosts such as GBDG.

 

Further, I'd like to echo Mark Shipp here re: running a store on an Access db. There are potentional security issues here, and as Greg Dinger has pointed out there are capacity issues here (Acess is a file -- so it can only perform one transaction at a time, say add, edit or delete; while it's doing each transaction, it writes a lock file. It can do this maybe upto 12-20 times per second max under optimal conditions. What's more, occassionally this .ldb files does not get released, and then the whole application comes crashing down). Running a store on Access is simply are really bad idea.