WordPress eStore Troubleshooting
Categories: Additional Resources
The Email doesn’t Arrive after Purchase! What am I Doing Wrong?
Turn debug on by checking the ‘Enable Debug’ check box from the settings menu and then save the settings. Now perform a test transaction. The plugin will generate a file named ‘ipn_handle_debug.log’ logging every step of the validation, product verification, database update and email process. If you open the file in a text editor such as notepad you will be able to see what is going wrong. If you don’t understand the debug file then please email me that file and I should be able to tell you exactly what the issue is.
Why isn’t the Return URL from PayPal working?
Looks like paypal has a little bit of redirection issue when redirecting to a post with the default permalink structure. To fix this issue just use any permalink structure but the default one from the Permalink Settings menu.
When an item is added to the shopping cart it sometimes shows up some times does not
Symptom – When an item is added to the shopping cart it sometimes shows up sometimes does not. Add/remove functions does not work all the time. When I turn off WP Super Cache plugin it works perfectly.
Cause – The WP super cache serves a static HTML version of your page so anyone adding items to the cart won’t show up as they are being served a cached version of the page.
Solution – WP Shopping Cart and WP Super Cache Workaround
The custom ‘Add to Cart’ or ‘Buy Now’ buttons are too big
Possible Cause – Your theme seem to not handle the images very good when the height and width is not defined.
Solution - specify the height and width of the button image in the CSS of the WP eStore plugin so it forces the image sizing.
Add the following to the WP eStore plugin’s CSS file:
width: 76px;
height: 20px;
}
Adjust the height and width properties to your needs. Make sure to refresh the browser window a few times so the new CSS file gets loaded.
W3 Total Cache Workaround
WP eStore is designed to work with the W3 Total Cache plugin. Simply add the following in the “Rejected Cookies” field of the “Page Cache Settings” menu of the W3 Total Cache plugin and all done:
cart_in_use
W3 Total Cache Workaround
Now when a visitor starts to use the shopping cart it will serve a dynamic page to him/her (everyone else still gets a cached page)
The button Images appear too Big or Small on the Thesis Theme
The Thesis theme specifies the width of the input field in it’s CSS… you can override this CSS by adding the following to the custom CSS file that doesn’t specify the width so the button image size is the actual size of the image:
border-width:0.067em;
padding:0.2em;
width: auto;
}
Getting the “Requested File Could Not Be Found” Error when clicking on the Encrypted Link
Possible Cause – There can be two reasons for this:
a) The downloadable file doesn’t exists in the specified URL (means you may have a typo in the URL)
b) Your hosting providers PHP settings doesn’t allow the fopen functionality which is the reason you are getting the ‘requested file could not be found’ error when using full/absolute URL to the file.
Workaround
Option 1: You can use the relative URL of the file. For example if the file name is ‘ebook.zip’ and it is kept inside a directory called ‘my-ebooks’ under the downloads directory then enter the following in the “Digital Product Download URL” field of this product:
If the file is located in the wp-content/uploads directory then enter the following:
Option 2: The other workaround is to uncheck the ‘Downloadable’ option by editing the product and use a zip file as the downloadable file. This will redirect the buyer to that URL but since the target URL contains a zip file the browser will pop up a download/save as option.
No Image showing for the button (Buy Now or Subscription)
Put the button image URL (when using with customized button image) in the “Button Image URL” field of that product. There are some button images included in the images directory of the plugin that you can use. This is a shopping cart plugin so the “Add to Cart” buttons get the default settings options. You need to specify the button image for the “Buy Now” and “Subscription” buttons.
Variation Control Not Working
If the variation control works on the default WordPress Theme but not on your current theme then the problem is related to Javascript not loading on the page. Look in the theme files to confirm that your current theme has the following bif of code:
Some theme developers do not understand how wordpress works fully and develop themes that causes trouble. This plugin loads the javascript in the footer rather than in the header for site optimization purpose.
The workaround is to manually put the above bit of code in your “footer.php” file or include the java scripts in the header.
August 9th, 2009 at 2:41 am
Hi
For some reason when I test the eStore by making a purchase myself, I receive an email from PayPal that a purchase has been made but the email with the download link doesn’t arrive. This also occurs when using someone else’s PayPal account. (the box in settings is checked for auto delivery)
The debug file shows every stage as successful so I’m not sure what the problem is.
Any help would be great.
Thanks
Ari
August 9th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
Hi Ari, Lets start with the debug file.. can you please send me the debug file so I can have a look (I will email you so you will be able to reply to my email and attach the file). Also can you please post the URL of the page where you are testing it so I can have a look?
August 12th, 2009 at 1:50 am
Okay I must be doing something wrong. I’m able to get the shopping cart to show up when I add a product if I place the cart code in the post.
But if I add the code to the side bar or anywhere else I’m unable to get it to show?
I’m new to WP so I’m sure its something I must be doing wronge.
Thanks,
Steve
August 12th, 2009 at 2:59 am
Hi Steve, The trigger text to display the shopping cart works from a post or page. when you want to display the shopping cart from a PHP file you need to use the following line or use the widget:
<?php echo eStore_shopping_cart(); ?>
August 12th, 2009 at 3:44 am
Thanks for the help that did the trick.
Steve
September 1st, 2009 at 7:41 pm
For some reason I cannot get the lightbox effect to work on my install. I have checked it on the settings menu but it still just opens a page with my picture in the top left corner. Is there a setting I am missing somewhere?
Thanks!
September 3rd, 2009 at 2:56 am
Hi Jody, something seems a little off on your site… what version of the WP eStore are you using?
September 3rd, 2009 at 6:01 am
2.8.4 and I am using the Ahimsa theme which can be found here:
http://ahren.org/code/
Could this be a theme conflict? I certainly hope not. What browser are you viewing with? Just curious.
September 3rd, 2009 at 6:05 am
My Bad – I misread that – the E-Store version is 2.4.2. WordPress is 2.8.4
September 3rd, 2009 at 8:05 am
Looks like you are missing the Javascript files.. can you check under the lib directory for .js files? I will contact you via email to take care of this.
September 3rd, 2009 at 6:57 pm
Interesting – here is the deal – when I unpacked my zip archive it did not unpack according to sub directories. Therefore everything was in the main folder. I reset my zip to unpack in sub folders and reloaded everything to my server and now it works fine. When you asked me to look in my lib folder for that java file it hit me.
So appreciate your quick response and awesome support.
Thank You!
September 10th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
For some reason emails are not being sent…I checked the “log” and everything is successful except the send emails…those 2 have failures…
so I need to set up a SMTP or something somewhere?
September 10th, 2009 at 9:15 pm
Hi Lynne, Please check the “Use WordPress Mailing System” check box so the plugin will use the WordPress mail function to send emails. You do get emails when someone leaves a comment on your blog right? if so then the plugin will be able to send emails using the same system.
September 30th, 2009 at 6:22 pm
Hey,
I’m getting an error that says – The link you have used to enter the PayPal system is invalid. Please review the link and try again.
What is the cause of this? The button is at – http://www.realistictrainingworks.com/jeetkunedoschool/
September 30th, 2009 at 11:41 pm
Hi Scott, Please note that PayPal is very strict about the format that is used in the price field for a product. Some common mistake people make are:
a) Putting the currency symbol in the price field (paypal doesn’t like it)
b) Putting comma (,) or other characters in the price field (PayPal doesn’t like it)
c) Putting “0″ in the Recurring amount field when configuring a subscription button (PayPal will not process a subscription payment that does not charge the customer anything… You can have a trial period where the customer doesn’t have to pay anything though).
So if are charging $10.95 for a product just enter 10.95 in the price field (the plugin will automatically put the currency symbol specified in the settings menu in the shopping cart for better display). Let me know if this helps.
October 4th, 2009 at 4:32 pm
Hey There ~
I’m loving the plugin so far – but have an issue with Firefox displaying the gallery properly. I’m using the latest of everything…
Here’s the URL: http://adriennefritze.com/store
Thank you!
Best,
A.
October 4th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
Hi, where is the log generated?
October 5th, 2009 at 12:06 am
@Jim, the log file is generated in this plugin’s directory when you have the “Enable Debug” option checked.
October 5th, 2009 at 12:37 am
@Adrienne, I had a quick look at your page and it looks like your page have HTML and script errors (If you view your page in IE you will see it gives a warning in the status bar saying “Errors on this page may prevent it from working correctly”). This may have been introduced by your theme or a plugin that you are using (Not all themes and plugins are well written)
Please note that not all HTML and script errors on a web page are fatal and browsers won’t complain but some errors are serious and it will cause other rendering issues such as this one.
A good way to make sure you don’t have any HTML violations on your page is to check the page with http://validator.w3.org/ and correct the errors first.
If this is possible then you can start to deactivate some plugins and switch your theme to the default one and check your site in IE to see if this Script Error disappears. If it does then start activating them one by one and keep checking your page to see which one introduces this error. Let me know how you go.
October 9th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
How do I remove the gray box/border around the “add to cart button”, the “delete” button and the “check out button”. Thanks.
October 10th, 2009 at 1:33 am
Hi Chuck, Those buttons are essentially images. The plugin doesn’t put any background or border around the images as you can see my shopping cart images don’t have it but some themes specify a border around the images and I think this is what’s happening in this case.
The plugin tries to keep all the CSS used in your theme so the shopping cart blends in nicely with your site’s style but you can override them to make it look the way you want it.
October 20th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Hello again,
by pressing the paypal button im beeing forwarded to the US Paypal Site.
I would rather beeing forwarded to the German Paypal Site.
How can this be done ?
October 21st, 2009 at 12:56 am
Hi Raintrader, PayPal will redirect your customers to the appropriate localized site based on your Merchant account. If this is not happening let me know.
November 12th, 2009 at 10:02 pm
Hi, just purchased wp eStore, installed, setup a test page with button, cart and checkout… everything looks and works great to this point.
Then I click on the paypal button to checkout and get an error message:
“Error Detected-
The seller accepts encrypted website payments only. You cannot pay the seller through un-encrypted buttons. Please contact your seller for more details.”
I entered my paypal email correctly in the plugin setup page. Did I miss a step in setting up?
November 13th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
Hi Deb, You have to go to PayPal and edit your profile, I believe its web site payment preferences and uncheck The encrypted button preferences. otherwise you will have to use HTTPS buttons and I don’t think your site have HTTPS cause it requires digital certificate and stuff. The other option is to use the PayPal’s hosted button.
November 24th, 2009 at 3:56 am
Hello,
I appear to have a problem. None of the products are saving when I go to add them.
any suggestions?? thanks
November 24th, 2009 at 7:46 am
@Matt, This symptom indicates that you have upgraded the plugin but didn’t do the “deactivate and reactivate”. Basically if you have differences in database table it won’t be able to save the data (deactivation and reactivation takes care of this). The other reason is that the database tables didn’t get created? This shouldn’t happen but weird things do happen from time to time (check to make sure the database tables have been created in your PHPMyAdmin panel)
March 12th, 2010 at 5:18 pm
Our customers are not getting the email with the download link for our digital product files. This only happens when they click the “Buy Now” button. When they use “Add to Cart”, they get the email with the download link the they’re supposed to.
I turned on debug and placed a test order, but the ipn_handle_debug.log file that was generated doesn’t have anything in it.
What should I do?
Thanks
March 13th, 2010 at 1:28 am
Hi Michael, The following forum post will explain what to do if your debug file is empty:
http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/forum/topic/what-to-do-if-the-debug-file-is-empty
Please let me know if you have any more questions.
Cheers,
Ivy
March 31st, 2010 at 6:01 pm
I’ve put the code below in my css file but the shopping cart images are still oversized on my thesis blog. Help!!
.custom .format_text input {
border-width:0.067em;
padding:0.2em;
width: auto;
}
March 31st, 2010 at 6:02 pm
Thanks in advance and look forward to your response
April 1st, 2010 at 6:43 am
Hi Joan, You need to put this piece of code in the “custom CSS file” of the thesis theme not the Shopping cart CSS.
Let me know how this goes.
Cheers,
Ivy
June 3rd, 2010 at 3:05 pm
In thesis with an Add To Cart button image, what css do I need to get rid of the border and background color for the text_input. I can’t seem to override it.
June 3rd, 2010 at 3:11 pm
solved it – just wrapped a div around it.
July 3rd, 2011 at 3:55 am
Wow, Wow, Wow.
Thank you so much for your prompt and personal service. You guys are amazing.
A major show stopper for me fixed in 24 hours and over a weekend… Brilliant.
Will definately be using more of your plugins in the future.
Thanks again sooooo much
Rog