Log out during checkout / payment

-- url of the page with the problem -- : www.melkvoordieren.nl/index.php/nl/naar-de-webshop
-- HikaShop version -- : HikaShop Business: 2.2.1
-- Joomla version -- : 2.5.14
-- PHP version -- : 5.3.24
-- Browser(s) name and version -- : Firefox 24

The problem: during checkout, the user is suddenly logged out.

This past week, we've had an intermittent problem with our webshop. Users are automatically (and seemingly randomly) logged out during checkout. Users are able to log in, place items in their cart and go to checkout. However, sometimes - and strangely only sometimes - things go wrong.

By splitting up our checkout as much as possible, we've come to the conclusion that the problem must lie with either the adress selection, or the payment selection. Sometimes, when selecting an adress, the adress page reloads. Clicking next does not take the user to the payment methods, but logs the user out, prompting Hikashop to display the login / register screen.

Logging in again simply repeats the process. Even if the address page does NOT reload, clicking next may still log the user out in the next step of the checkout, as above.

So far, it's been very tricky to repeat the error consistently. Some accounts seem to be free of the problem (and those customers can order normally), others (including our own admin account) go wrong roughly half the time. We haven't been able to isolate the error to a single account, number of addresses, a specific type or amount of product... it seems to be almost random.

We've recenty updated to Hikashop 2.2.1, but that worked fine at first. We've also recently installed Joomfish, but disabling the plugin seems to make no difference.

We hope you can help - the randomness is driving us crazy.

Hi,

I've done some tests through your website, and that worked fine each time (tested it 4 times with different products and browser).
Can you download the last version of Hikashop through our website, install it, and check if you are facing this issue again ?

Thank you for testing!

Figuring it might have something to do with unexpected logouts from Joomla! itself, we disabled and re-enabled the 'Database' session handling session. This seems to have improved performance somewhat.

Meanwhile, we have re-installed Hikashop (we installed 2.2.2).

All in all, performance does seem to be improved. However, we are still getting clients who can't complete checkout due to being logged out. Also, checkout still loops at times on our computer - oddly, this time it seems to be looping on the custom field we use during checkout.

It's the randomness that throws us: the effects seem to change unpredictably - which makes it very hard still to reproduce the effect.

Session Timout is already set for 60 minutes, sadly...

All we can reproduce at the moment is having the checkout loop. When that happens, there is a strange effect in the url. We missed it so far - thanks for pointing out the possibility!

What seems to be happening is:
- checkout starts
- checkout goes to step 1 (address)
- it then goes to step 1 again (showing the address page again), but the url changes to step-2
- it may or may not stay in this loop
- if it breaks the loop it then goes to the url step-2 again, only this time it shows the actual step 2 from the settings.
- when the loop is broken, the shop allows us to order normally.

The earlier log-out trouble (that we can't reproduce anymore - though some customers do still seem to be affected) was much like the above effect, only it logged you out after repeating the loop once or twice.

We think the problem has lessened a lot since installing Hikashop 2.2.2, but it's hard to say exactly which problems out customers are running into... sorry it's all a bit vague.

Hi Nicolas,

We checked, and the error messages were indeed hidden. We switched them on, but we do not get any error messages, while the problem still persists.

We have run some more tests over the past few days. Strangely, the logout troubles are back for our computers as well.

By changing the order of the checkout workflow, we think we have determined where checkout goes wrong. The logout always occurs before the 'shipping methods' step. It doesn't seem to matter which step is placed before that.

The shipping method is dependent on the customer's country (so every country will have it's own shipping options), but the logout occurs wether we select a dutch, german or belgian address. We haven't tried other countries - our customers are mostly from those three countries.

We have also tried switching on joomla debugging mode, but no obvious error messages come up.

Is there anything else we can try? Again, the strange thing is that checkout doesn't always fail. Even with a single address (for example our own home address), it may or may not work.

Hi,

Thanks to download the latest version of HikaShop from our website (still 2.2.2 but with some fixes)
A problem about the error messages has been corrected.

Hi,

over the past days, we have tried:

- downloading HS 2.2.2. and reinstalling. No effect, sadly.
- copying the website with akeeba and placed it on another server. Exactly the same problems persist.
- uninstalling Joomfish on that copy. No change.
- running the website and shop on a standard Joomla template (Atomic). Again, sadly no change.

I'm afraid we're still getting random logouts during checkout. The address selection almost always loops once (so you have to select and address twice before the software continues), and then may or may not log out. Some new clients run into trouble immediately, others can order normally.

Any suggestions that we can try out?

We tried allowing users to order through a guest account, in the hopes that the error was in the log in somewhere. Sadly, those orders show the same trouble: they drop the user back to the login screen of the Hikashop checkut process.

So far, we're still no closer to a solution (or even identifying the problem). It's still strange that the effect happens often, but not always!
What does happen VERY regularly, is that users have to enter their address twice.

Could you please try to place a few fake orders again? Hopefully, you'll experience the issue yourselves - which should help in solving it!

-- url of the page with the problem -- : www.melkvoordieren.nl/index.php/nl/naar-de-webshop
-- HikaShop version -- : HikaShop Business: 2.2.2
-- Joomla version -- : 2.5.14
-- PHP version -- : 5.3.24
-- Browser(s) name and version -- : Firefox 24

The problem: during checkout, the user is suddenly logged out.

Hi Nicolas,

Sadly, we're still experiencing the problem.
We made a copy of the website using Akeeba, placed it on another server, and tried to order from there. Exactly the same problem happened.

To figure out wether some plugin was the problem, we systematically shut down, deleted or unpublished every extension or module we could. We tried to cut it down to the most basic extensions and Hikashop. The log outs still happened. After this, we tried (again) to use a basic template (Atomic) to see if that helped. Sadly, it didn't.

What now? the only thing we can think of is re-installing Joomla and Hikashop on a copy server, and try to rebuild it from scratch. Do you know if we could import the database as is? Or will that mess up everything (again)?

Hi,

Yes thanks to try to rebuild from scratch, import only the hikashop tables and the joomla user ones, and see if the problem happen again.
If not, try to put back the template, then the other extensions, etc.

Hope this will help to find from where the problem can come.

Very well, we've installed joomla, and did a clean install of HikaShop.

There is no Hikashop export option, correct? How would we get the products back into the new install?

We could export (part of) the database in MySQL - everything labeled HikaShop, for example. Is it safe to just overwrite the standard Hikashop database like that? Do we have to overwrite everything, or are there only specific tables that need to be copied (VAT rules would be easy to reset through the backend for example, so we don't really need those)

Another option is export tables from the database as CSV. Would that work? HikaShop has a CSV import option, but we're not sure which labels that import function expects to see.

So we did! We're importing the articles, and will set up Hikashop to run some tests. Hope this works!

Just to follow up: we re-installed joomla, installed a template and instaled Hikashop. We are no longer experiencing problems.
Whatever it was, it must have been due to a strange combination of events.

The only thing we haven't got running yet is the IDEAL plugin for HS. If that brings back the problem, at least we'll know!
But it looks like we're good to go. Thanks for all the support!