Orders spinning and not going through - resolved!

[Doc B.]

We are aware of this issue that a few customers are having. Rest assured we are working the problem. Meanwhile if you are trying to place an order and it is getting stuck when you hit the submit button, please contact eileen at [email protected] . She can send you an invoice for your order that can be paid by credit card or paypal.

[Doc B.]

We got back from Bonneville over the weekend and I dove into this issue for the past two days. It seems to be resolved. Hopefully, as my head is still spinning from the experience.

Basically the way APIs are handled (an API is software that lets apps from bottlehead.com talk to apps like UPS and USPS) changed this year. That happened right after our great old IT guy refurbed our site and then announced his retirement.

We attempted to work with two different WooCommerce (the shopping cart software we use) devs to solve the issue and in each case they pronounced the site too full of custom code for them to easily go in and find/fix the problem. They were suggesting a major overhaul/update, in other words, they would like to be driving a nicer car and hoped I would agree to funding it.

So I went into my DIY trance and started hammering thru it. It had nothing to do with custom code. APIs are handled differently as of this summer and the notices saying the change was coming were right there in the WooCommerce dashboard. I dunno maybe the devs can't read very well. So I started to wrestle with updating the APIs - which meant dealing with UPS and USPS websites. If you have not done this try to avoid it at all costs - "Log in with your user ID. Note this is not the user ID you log in with, it is the other user ID you log in with. You can obtain that user ID by logging in with the user ID you can obtain by logging in at the link, with your user ID".

Eventually Eileen and I decoded the matrix and got the new O Auth2.0 REST API thingamabob to work for both UPS and USPS. We added a little extra bling and now you should be able to see various shipping costs listed in your cart like every other website on the planet has had for years.

Of course this is all theoretical. The test orders we placed on the site worked great, but we are counting on you folks to let us know if you are having problems with the cart. We will do our best to help you if you get stuck. Email Eileen at queen at bottlehead dot com if you need help.

Thanks for your patience with us!