General Store Problems

We seem to be running into a number of problems with our new store setup (we are in the process of converting from SalesCart Express to SalesCart Cloud).

Shopping Cart: Some items will not add to the shopping cart. The only pattern we can identify is that this only seems to affect products with attributes. In some cases it's the entire product regardless of the attributes selected, in other cases it's only certain attribute combinations.

Pricing: On products that have multiple attribute selections, any base price adder is dropped from the total price as soon as the next level attribute is selected. When an item is added to the cart, the total for the item does not include any base price additions for attributes.

Wish List: On products that have attribute selections, some items will not add to wish list. For items that will add to the wish list, no attribute selections are included.

We seem to be having no issue for products without additional attribute options.

Any assistance you can provide in identifying the cause of these problems is appreciated.

I'm not convinced the problems are unrelated, but we can attack them one at a time if that will help. Let's start with the first problem, items not adding to cart. An example of a product that will not add to the cart, regardless of attributes selected can be found at this link: http://www.salescart.net/store20/ProductTop.aspx?ProductID=610&StoreID=289. Regardless of the attributes selected, the item will not add to cart. An example of a product that will add to the cart with some attributes, but not with others can be found at this link: http://www.salescart.net/store20/ProductTop.aspx?productID=608&StoreID=289. If you pick the first item on the list of each attribute selection, the item will add to the cart, but if you select the last item on the list for each attribute option, it will not. With other attribute combinations, some add, some don't.

Please let me know if you need further info.

Thanks for the help. The number of options is exactly the same as in our existing SalesCart express store and we've had no problems on that platform. If it helps to have the working store to compare to, those products are located at http://www.encoderoutlet.com/mall/buy-modellce.html and http://www.encoderoutlet.com/mall/buy-modeltr3.html

Ok, this "first" issue is resolved.

The issue was we never expected the description which includes the Option modifiers to be that long. The programmers said they provide merchants the ability to set two fields. One field is for the option description they want to provide to the customer to see (which is expected to be long and verbose), and then a shorter description back to the merchant that they expect to be very "summary" in nature so the item can be quickly and more efficient gathered by the merchant without lots of modifiers not necessary for the merchant to identify the attribute.

They could have gone back and simply reduced the total number of characters you can provide for those "summary form descriptions" & in the future this will likely be the case. However, for now, they have extended the description to allow for more characters.

For example, you have this description.

Low cost linear solution in Standard Housing with resolutions from 2-500 cycles per inch.     -(Cable Exit=Option 2 (2); Cycles Per Inch=200 Cycles Per Inch; Channels=Quadrature A&B w/ Index Z (R); Number of Channels=Line Driver (HV); Connector Type=8-pin M12 (12 mm))

The would envision an option presented to the customer as: Cycles Per Inch=200 Cycles Per Inch, but expect the form option back to the merchant to be something shorter like 200CPI. However, in any case, it is working currently.


Edited by admin - March/21/16 at 3:53pm

It does appear that problem 1 has been resolved (we have a lot of products and options, so we're still testing), but it had no impact on the other problems. This is just an observation, but it would have been helpful if some documentation existed to tell us character limits, and maybe even intended purpose, for the input fields. The help links either go nowhere or contain no useful information. We certainly could have shortened our descriptions had we known.

Yeh, I figured that is why I passed the information on. It was just "presumed" the merchant would use a more succinct description so in the future when they impose a limit, it will likely message as to that difference.

Ok, well I am definitely seeing the price change problem so will escalate that next. I'm not sure if that one is next or not but that problem actually is worse and definitely more obvious.

I can see how that design would make in a lot of situations. Because of the technical nature of our product, this design would likely be confusing to a large number of our customers. Many of our customers use this type of feature to pass information along to a purchasing agtent. Under SalesCart Express, there was no wish list, just an email cart option. With that option, our customers were able to email their purchasing departments the complete configuration. Is it possible for us to disable the wish list feature to avoid confusing our customers?

Ok, the pricing issue is a bug. We just recently added the ability to do drop down options from plain text options and it appears and the option pricing model seems to see assume the old single text attributes instead of the drop down functionality. It is more complex but we'll get this fixed for you within the next few days.

It looks like the pricing is working correctly and being able to turn off the wish list is working perfectly.

We are now finding that we are receiving a server error when selecting the manufacturer tab. This happens on all products, but usually only if you select the manufacturer tab, then any other tab, and then attempt to return to the manufacturer tab. The text of the error is as follows:

Server Error in '/store20' Application.
Object variable or With block variable not set.
Description: An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more information about the error and where it originated in the code.

Exception Details: System.NullReferenceException: Object variable or With block variable not set.

Source Error:


Line 1535:        End Try
Line 1536:
Line 1537:        Dim URLManuf As String = ManufURLDetailsView.DataItem("ManufLink").ToString
Line 1538:        'If the MID is
Line 1539:        Try


Source File: D:\Domains\SalesCart_Express\wwwroot\store20\ProductTop.aspx.vb    Line: 1537

Stack Trace:


[NullReferenceException: Object variable or With block variable not set.]
   Microsoft.VisualBasic.CompilerServices.Container..ctor(Object Instance) +1212344
   Microsoft.VisualBasic.CompilerServices.NewLateBinding.ObjectLateInvokeDefault(Object Instance, Object[] Arguments, String[] ArgumentNames, Boolean ReportErrors, Boolean[] CopyBack) +39
   Microsoft.VisualBasic.CompilerServices.NewLateBinding.LateIndexGet(Object Instance, Object[] Arguments, String[] ArgumentNames) +53
   ProductTop.ManufURLDetailsView_PreRender(Object sender, EventArgs e) in D:\Domains\SalesCart_Express\wwwroot\store20\ProductTop.aspx.vb:1537
   System.Web.UI.Control.OnPreRender(EventArgs e) +9077586
   System.Web.UI.WebControls.DetailsView.OnPreRender(EventArgs e) +35
   System.Web.UI.Control.PreRenderRecursiveInternal() +103
   System.Web.UI.Control.PreRenderRecursiveInternal() +175
   System.Web.UI.Control.PreRenderRecursiveInternal() +175
   System.Web.UI.Control.PreRenderRecursiveInternal() +175
   System.Web.UI.Control.PreRenderRecursiveInternal() +175
   System.Web.UI.Control.PreRenderRecursiveInternal() +175
   System.Web.UI.Control.PreRenderRecursiveInternal() +175
   System.Web.UI.Control.PreRenderRecursiveInternal() +175
   System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint) +2496

We currently have no manufacturers assigned to our products because we are the manufacturer. We would prefer to disable this tab altogether, but don't see that as a possibility. (While we're on the subject, we'd also prefer to disable the specifications tab since the available fields aren't really relevant to our products.) As long as it's a tab the customer can select, we would prefer the customer not see an error. Is the error happening simply because we don't have a manufacturer assigned? If so, and we must use the tab, we can assign a manufacturer.