HA1

We've been trying to do a better job keeping up with updates as they become available. The main deterrent is the fact that our site has a slightly modified skin that we need to manually change when making upgrades. To that end, I was hoping to make the suggestion that release announcements (>like this) could include a note on whether or not the upgrade involved changes to skin files? There may be good reason why that detail is not noted. But if all else is the same, it would be helpful just to have that information to save a little time for those of us who were foolish enough to deviate from the standard skins. Thanks for your consideration!

Our site runs a modified version of the crosshatch skin and upgrades have been a challenge. Is there a tool (or some sort of documentation) that we can use to compare all the files in the skin folder to determine which files have seen changes between versions? We are moving from 5.2.8 to 5.2.13. I was looking at the WinMerge tool, but several reviews indicate that the software comes with some spyware nasties. Thanks in advance for any advice you can provide.

I'm still working on this issue. We were able to figure out that any email service we use to send messages with our cart experiences a delay - not just gmail. Media Temple is our host and we are on their grid service. The email delay started at some point last year. We had made no changes to cubecart when the problem started happening and can only assume that our host made some sort of change that slowed our outgoing email. Media temple has not been able to give us any answers and reminded us that they won't support any third party software that we are running on their servers. Are there any changes I can make to cubecart to allow the emails to be sent without holding up order processing? The delay is between 10 and 15 seconds - just enough to get some customers to press submit over and over again thinking the order didn't go through. If we do a bulk change to order status of 20 orders from processing to complete, the website can hang for a few minutes while all of the emails are sent off one at a time. We would love to find a way around this issue and are open to your ideas.

This was very, very, helpful. Thank you very much. The upgrade went smoothly and we are very happy that the confirm shipping preference issue was addressed in version 5.2.8.

Our site runs on a version 5.2.5 using a slightly modified version of the crosshatch skin. Is there documentation that indicates on whether or not changes to the skin are necessary between different versions of cubecart? We would like to upgrade to 5.2.8 and weren't sure if this would require any modifications to the skin we are using.

We have also found this process to be confusing for customers. Once they come back to the site from PayPal, they end up having to navigate back through pages that they had already completed earlier in the transaction. We know from follow-up on incomplete orders that many of those customers were under the impression that they were done after coming back to our site after completing their information on PayPal. We would be inclined to get rid of paypal express entirely, but PayPal also serves as our credit card processor through PayPal Pro and we have yet to find a way to remove the PayPal express radio button option from the payment option screen on our site.. We did remove the express button from the page that immediately precedes the payment option screen in an effort to reduce the number of customers who opt for that payment option. If there is any way to get the order to complete when the customer comes back to the site from PayPal, that would be the best case scenario. If that is not possible, some sort of clear messaging to the customer when they return to the site would be a step in the right direction. Thanks.

Thanks for your advice. By disabling the email, the order status changes very quickly and customers don't experience the long lag when they making payment. I think we can safely attribute this to an email issue and not a problem with cubecart. This is a big deal for us because the long, long pause at the payment screen causes customers to press submit several times, causing multiple payments. I had one panicked customer call Saturday morning after racking up nearly $500 in payments on a $45 order. I have a support ticket into gmail. I am using their google apps service with our company email address because we like the gmail interface and its storage capacity. I don't have high hopes on google to come up with a fix. I've tried a number of different smtp settings and none seem to make a difference. Thanks for your help.

bsmither Thank you for your welcome message. I've been lurking here for some time and have benefited enormously from your posts. I don't know if we would still be using cubecart if it weren't for the workarounds and advice that you provide here. Thank you. I couldn't find reference to this particular issue and have put up with it for a while, but only recently realized how annoying it is for customers. For the record, I don't think this is a problem with cubecart - I'm just not sure how to fix it and I've yet to find anything helpful in gmail support forums. I don't even know if there is a way to submit a support ticket with gmail. I'd love to know if there is a way to turn off the emails to customers and administrators - if only to be able to say for sure that email is the culprit.

One other hint - if I switch from processing to pending, there is no delay in the order status change. From pending to processing or processing to order complete, it takes very long. Sometimes I get a 503 timeout. The system doesn't send out an email when we go from processing to pending status, right? I really think this is an email issue, but I don't know what is causing it.

I'm currently using cubecart 5.2.5 but this problem cropped up back when I was still on cc4 this summer/fall. The upgrade didn't help. When I change order status from pending to processing, there is a big delay as the orders change. If I do a bulk status change, on several orders it takes a few minutes. For some reason, I think it has something to do with my email provider taking too long to send each individual message when the status changes. All was working fine until midway through 2013. Prior to that, order status changes were nearly instant. I'm currently sending my cart email via a paid google apps account through gmail. In addition to the slowness on the backend, it also seems to be affecting the front end as well for customers as they are making payment. The system hangs at checkout and some customers are pressing submit many, many times leading to multiple duplicate payments. Again, I'm thinking this might have something to do with the fact that an email is being sent at the time of the order being placed and the system slows until the email goes out. Any thoughts?