Order sometimes disappear from admin/orders.php

[Kofod]

I have searched around the forum, using Google, but did not find a solution, through it seems a few others have had the same issue:

 

I work part-time in a physical store which also has a web-shop. Untill a year ago it was a OSCommerce 2.3.3-store, and now it's a OSCommerce Phoenix 1.0.4.0-store. I have a local test-environment running a clean OSCommerce Phoenix 1.0.7.9 and and online test-install of OSCommerce Phoenix 1.0.7.11 in which I've managed to recreate the issue, so it seems to be a core-issue, unless it's server-settings.

The problem is, that when we are processing orders in the store, we sometimes (luckily) are interupted by customers. This means that the order-editor sometimes is open for quite a while, and when this is the case, sometimes the order will completely or partly vanish - sometimes everything is gone, sometimes just some customer-data or ordered-products (gone from the admin-site and the database). My guess, and I'm not a clever one, is that this has to do with sessions expiring, but I have no idea of how to confirm or deny this. Neither do I know how to fix it, or whether it is something that is so intentionally (Perhaps for security-reasons)?

 

Thus, I ask for your help; can and should this be fixed, or should I just instruct my colleagues to always close the editor when leaving the PC (That I have already done, but one of them tend to be forgetful)?

 

//Daniel

[ArtcoInc]

@Kofod

When you say you are "editing an order", what do you mean? Are you changing an order status (ie: from 'processing' to 'shipped')? Or, are you actually changing the order itself (addresses, products, etc)?

And yes, you should instruct your colleagues again (and again, and ...) 😀

Malcolm

[Kofod]

@ArtcoInc

Sorry for being unclear about that; it happens when opening the order (from the list at admin/orders.php, clicking on the order twice to update status, look at details and so on).

 

9 hours ago, ArtcoInc said:

And yes, you should instruct your colleagues again (and again, and ...) 😀

Well, not surprised, and trust me, I will - maybe the problem here is, that we're selling alcohol.. 😉

 

//Daniel

[BrockleyJohn]

This is a perennial intermittent problem. Sometimes you get a glitch during saving the order and the order status gets set to zero. When there's no matching status value the orders disappear from the list.

The easiest workaround is:

- create a new order status with a name that's meaningful to you (e.g. "Error - reset manually")

- use phpmyadmin to edit the record for your new status in the orders_status table and update the value of orders_status_id to 0 (zero)

hey presto - they magically appear in the list.

The next time it happens, the order will still be visible

[Jack_mcs]

@KofodAnother option is to increase the session timeout of admin. By default, the session times out in 24 minutes, as I recall. Increasing that to an hour or two will prevent the problem. But please note that since this will leave your connection active, it could be a security issue if you are away for a long time and someone that shouldn't have access happens to see it. Here are many posts on how to change the session length. 

[Kofod]

1 hour ago, BrockleyJohn said:

use phpmyadmin to edit the record for your new status in the orders_status table and update the value of orders_status_id to 0 (zero)

Thank you for the answer, @BrockleyJohn, but the orders are not always saved with a status_id 0. Sometimes they are un-saved with the previous status_id, sometimes with the new one, but some data is deleted in either case (I did see you mention this solution in a similar tread, and looked to see if it was the same problem I had).

 

@Jack_mcs (My phone won't tag you for some reason),

Thank you for the link! I will read through, taking careful notes of the security-problem! I hope you don't mind if I ask you further questions here, regarding the security, in case I can't find the answers via the link?

 

P.S I'm kinda proud that I managed to guess somewhat close to what caused my issue, assuming it is the session-thingy

 

//Daniel

[Jack_mcs]

9 hours ago, Kofod said:

I hope you don't mind if I ask you further questions here, regarding the security, in case I can't find the answers via the link?

It's only a security issue if others have access to your computer that shouldn't have access. One of my clients is the only one that has access to his computer so he had me set the time out to 20 hours.

[Kofod]

@Jack_mcs 

Thank you so much for your answers! Problem solved thanks to you, I'm truly grateful!

 

//Daniel