We just received a call from our customer that they are not able to purchase a product because they are getting a "shopping cart not found" error message.

He is using Internet Explorer version 7.0.5730.11 on a PC.
He deleted all cookies and continues to get the same problem.
He has ordered successfully three different times in the past month.
He says he has not made any changes to IE, his PC or any other software since his previous successful purchases.

He locates a product using search (we use a third party software product - FreeFind).
He clicks "Add to Cart"
The product is visible in the right column shopping cart.
He clicks "View / Add to Cart"
He gets an error message "Shopping Cart not found"

Has anyone else experienced this - or had any customers contact you with this issue?

Have your customer watch the URL of your site as he goes through the search and purchase process. I believe the information that there are products saved in the cart is stored in a browser cookie. If a user was browsing on - example.com - with products in their cart and they clicked a link that took them to - WWW.example.com - then their session / cookie would be different according to most browsers. So at that point his cart would be empty.

Thanks for your response...but, sorry!....I do not understand your comment.
Could you please re-phrase?

We do use a domain name that is forwarded to the domain name used for the shopping cart. Does this have anything to do with what you're mentioning?

Also, the reported process is:
Click "Add to Cart" link on product
See product listed on right column
Click "View or Edit Cart" in right column shopping cart
At this point, the address in the address bar I've always seen is
https://xxxxxx.netsolstores.com/cart.aspx (where x is a character or digit)

What should I look for?

Thanks!

We had another customer call today to report the same problem.

The customer clicked "Add to Cart",
the product is displayed in the Shopping Cart in the right column,
however, when the customer attempts to check out,
the shopping cart is empty.

In these two cases, the customer contacted us to report the problem.
How many customers just got annoyed and went elsewhere?

I am getting the false item in shopping cart all the time. It is extremely frustrating. The only way to get around it is to restart the browser and kiss the customer bye bye.

The customer faith in the shopping cart is now broken. We are discovering that it is a complicated set of events that makes this occur but not always only sometimes.

Shopping cart contents must be displayed in right column. During the checkout process at the shipping options, if a customer decides to click "view edit chopping cart" and modify the cart, it will possibly get messed up.

The cart display on the right column will continue to display items in the cart. If you try to checkout the cart empty message is displayed.

This is not a consistent error and is only cleared by exiting your browser.

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So, what is the ETA on including the long description for product search?

Regards,
Philip

We received two more customer emails from customers who were not able to order.

Customer 1:
THE CART DOESN'T WORK. I AM HAVING TO PLACE TWO SEPARATE ORDERS. YES, I HAVE COOKIES ENABLED AND POP-UPS ENABLED.

We received two orders from this customer. Each order had one item. Why can't the customer add a second item to their cart?

Customer 2:
the website won't let me checkout

I have reported this problem through technical support - but it doesn't appear to be getting any traction. Yes, I understand that it is difficult to figure out the problem when you can't diuplicate the issue on your own computer. Obviously, not everyone is having a problem because we are receiving orders. Nonetheless, we are also 1-2 reports per day from customers that they can't place an order. That's from the customers who communicate to us. How many just went elsewhere?

ArcoJedi,
I can now re-create the error that our customers are reporting.
Is there a way that I can contact you (or that you can contact me) so that I can step you through it?
Hopefully, you (or someone else there) can then figure out how to address the problem.

checking it out,

Our technical support is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at 888.252.3266 (option 2). Any of our reps should be able to document exactly what you are describing and pass it along to the proper folks.

Thanks for your diligence here.

I also am having the same problem periodically with items placed in the cart but then it says the cart is empty. On the home page on the RH column it shows the items in the cart, but if you try to check out it says the cart is empty. I've also had several customers call me in frustration trying to place an order. I wonder how many customers have just given up and bought somewhere else.

I've contacted NS with this but still haven't heard anything.

When testing orders for our site, we have noticed that if a user is already logged in and then attempts to add an item to their cart, they get a "Your shopping cart is currently empty. " response.

If the user logs out, they can then add the item to their cart. This can be duplicated on two sites we have running on NS. Not a major problem for us since most users / shoppers don't log-in first... But is most likely an issue for others.

This is not happening when I try on your site in IE or Firefox. Can you provide the exact steps to make this happen?

Thanks

I also have been having major problems with this that are still unresolved. I've had to disable registration and login completely to cure the problem. If registration is enabled, periodically when you try to add an item to the cart it claims the cart is empty. If however you go into your MCP to "shopping carts" you'll see the item appear but the customer cannot. I've made numerous complaints about this with no resolution to date. This is a most serious bug that has been costing me sales for quite awhile.

Dave,

I believe it happens after you enter the site and add items to your cart. Then loggin in and empty the cart. Once you empty the cart after loggin - you get the cannot add to cart message. I will verify again and document in detail for your review. Thank you for looking into the issue.

Initial follow-up... we were not able to duplicate while documenting steps tonight, but we did go from a shared SSL to our own SSL certificate yesterday (May 12). The last instance of this issue prior to the certificate change was on Friday. I will continue to test on our end and follow-up if we can duplicate with certainty. Thanks

Do you have an additional domain name that is forwarded to your e-commerce site? This was the source of the troubles with my site. We had an existing e-commerce site before creating the Network Solutions e-commerce site. Since the two sites were operational at the same time, I had two domain names (one for each site). When finished with the first (original) site, I forwarded the first (original) domain name to the second (Network Solutions) site. Customers who used Internet Explorer 6 did not have any issues, however, customers who reached our site using the forwarded domain name with Internet Explorer 7 could not check out.

Hope that helps!