havenswift-hosting

Assuming you are already on 5.6.X then there is not any functional changes - also assuming you are running V6 CubeCart as well !

There is a much simpler solution if it is your own dedicated server that you pay for - install CloudLinux and then not only can you select which version of PHP you run on an account by account basis, the older versions (5.2 to 5.5) are maintained from a security point of view. V5.6 or V7 PHP are still far superior and faster but it provides a solution for V3 sites Ian

This particular security upgrade is very simple to implement BUT this yet again highlights why you should NOT make core changes to CubeCart files unless you can control all those changes via some form of change control or are prepared to spend a lot of time re-implementing each and every change into each new version. CubeCart V6 is moving ahead with bug fixes and lots of new functionality very quickly and most CubeCart users should not be making these changes or be encouraged to do so. Ian

Both sites look fine to me and exactly the same so if you are seeing something different it is likely to be a local browser cache issue, so try clearing that. A quick note - you should choose to use www or non-www for your website and always redirect one to the other or you risk duplicate content issues Ian

I agree that many of the available skins look similar and some very old fashioned - I can't see any reason to stop you from using Bootstrap to create a new skin but Foundation can and has been used to create many fantastic looking skins for stores. We tried something slightly different with our Retail Therapy skin (see the demo at https://www.cubecart-demo.co.uk) and this is already integrated with many of our own and other third party plugins and now we have also an initial release of a skin configuration plugin that we give free to anyone buying our skins. Ian

Hi It is possible (although not advisable) to run CubeCart on a local Windows machine but 99% of people will need a web hosting account with a web host running Linux - cPanel is the most common hosting control panel. Web hosting accounts do cost money and like with most things in the world, you generally get what you pay for so going for the big, cheap hosting companies is rarely the best option. Most hosting companies are able to host CubeCart as it has very few requirements but if you are interested in talking to us, we are a leading CubeCart hosting company and offer free support for CubeCart with our E-Commerce hosting packages. We also install CubeCart for free if this is your first store or migrate it for free from any other hosting company if you already have an established site Ian

@bsmither You should not mix ReWriteRule and ReDirect together as most of the time they don't work well together (strangely they sometimes do) so for CubeCart sites we always use ReWriteRule in the format you showed. @Shari Marie The 500 error you received was due to incorrectly editing the .htaccess and either deleting or adding something that shouldn't been there - it is very unforgiving of any tiny mistake. It is 100% worth the effort of adding every single old style URL that is either embedded on any other site or is already indexed by Google (try the following search in Google but without the quotes "site:sharimariecreations.com" and see what it returns !). Benefits include retaining Google link juice (which is very important for rankings) and user experience (you don't want people ever seeing the 404 if it can be helped). Ian

Whether you can do it yourself is dependent on your skill levels but it is a case of changing the .htaccess file and re-positioning these newly added redirect directives to different locations so they don't interfere with each other. Hostgator would be able to easily see what the problem is - it is just a case of whether they will be willing to make these changes. The ionCube error is due to a file that isn't part of standard CubeCart so further detailed investigation would be needed to look at where that file comes from unless you know a mod or plugin that has added this. Ian

Hi What you have done via cPanel is correct but cPanel isn't very good at adding the redirect directives in the correct place in the .htaccess file and unfortunately, the exact position in relation to other directives is very important and so you will almost certainly need to manually change this. We do this for all our CubeCart hosting customers so you could try asking your hosting company but many won't support this as they consider it an application issue Ian

There was a good suggestive search mod originally V5 that helped a lot but the developer is no longer around (for a couple of years) and there are changes needed to the code to get it to work although quite a few sites do use this with V6 once modified. Search is always a tricky topic in any product and what CubeCart really needs is a comprehensive search plugin that is configurable for multiple situations but it is a lot of work and could have ongoing cost implications depending on how complex it gets and what search engine is used.

Having all of these links directing to the homepage is a VERY bad idea and making changes to the core code to facilitate this is even worse ! If you really want everything to go to the homepage, create 301 redirects in your .htaccess (still a BAD idea) but by far the best way forward is to create 301 directives for each of these urls and redirect them to the equivalent page (or nearest in content) in your new store. You have indexed links and content on other sites that could be providing SEO link juice to your new site and you are about to throw it away ! Ian

The ft_min_word_len restrictions (which 99% of users will not be able to change) are the reason the search was re-written the way it is which unfortunately still doesn't work very well

Yes all correct. Be sure to backup the database as well as the files and when you manually upload the files, upload everything from /admin into whatever your new admin directory is called and also copy the new admin.php and rename it to be admin_XXXXXX.php suitable for your installation - that way your admin URL won't change and you will correctly upgrade the admin files without leaving duplicates The best way of learning is asking questions and then having a go yourself exactly as you are doing ! Good luck Ian

The best way to setup CubeCart stores is to hold prices without VAT tax added and then setup the tax rules to add the tax for the countries where it is required. If you would like to display prices to include VAT then using the plugin already mentioned by Brian is needed. This setup works best under all circumstances Ian

Assume you actually mean 6.1.1 and want to go to 6.1.4 but in any case it makes no difference as any upgrade is a complete replacement and there are no intermediate upgrades where only changed files are replaced as with some applications. There have been some problems in recent versions with the built in upgrade functionality so it is best to do a manual upgrade Ian

This is a function of MySQL where the full text search minimum character length defaults to 4. This can be changed at a server level by changing ft_min_word_len and innodb_ft_min_token_size variables (see https://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.7/en/fulltext-fine-tuning.html) and we will often change this to 3 on our servers (and so your search would work)

Hi The easiest way to do this is with our Enhanced Sorting plugin which is available direct from our website or via the Extensions Marketplace (https://www.cubecart.com/extensions/developer/havenswift-hosting for a list of our plugins including this one) - this will do exactly what you want by allowing you to select which products are displayed as "Latest Products" and in which order. There are six or seven other additional areas where sorting is added. There is even a free 7 day trial so you can test it in your store before buying and it is a true plugin with no core file changes needed Ian

All work fine for me as they have always done !

Early versions of Foundation had issues in this area - you should try switching to the latest version of Foundation as a test and it will work. Foundation has changed a huge amount since its first release Ian

What version of CubeCart are you running ? The warning message is a known issue (thought it had been fixed in latest version but it has been reported at least and isn't anything to specially worry about) but the blank screens will need further investigating.

That category and all other categories appear to be working perfectly for me - are you still having the same problem ? Have you tried clearing browser cache, using a different browser or device ? Ian

Our Enhanced Sorting Plugin allows you to sort Latest Products on the homepage in any order that you want ! This plugin adds the ability to sort multiple other things that arent possible in core - see the list below, taken from marketplace description ! A 7 day demo is also available so you can try before you buy ! Ian * Ability to customise the display order of products within each category * Ability to customise the display order of the Latest Products on the homepage * Ability to customise the display order of the Best Sellers All of the above allow any number of specific products to be enabled and then sorted and these take precedence over the default display order of the remaining products. This is all done using the standard V6 method of drag and drop, making it extremely easy to use. In addition, the following items are also sortable and for languages and currencies, the new tab will only display those items that are enabled. * Languages * Currencies * Shipping costs. CubeCart lists cheapest to most expensive by default and the plugin allows you to specify the most expensive as the default choice

The error message you are getting is saying that the /index.php file doesnt exist or alternatively there is a redirect in place that is not allowing browsers to reach that file. Have you confirmed that the file has been uploaded ? Ian

@Al Brookbanks I cant believe any hosting company would allow that (or the other five or six common "problem functions" especially on shared servers - we switch them all off on all servers even client dedicated servers !

We disable shell_exec, along with lots of other unsafe functions, on all our servers and I cannot see any responsible hosting company allowing that php function