Problems with Mal's accounts on ww4

[ShoppePro]

If any of you have had trouble with the cart portion of your site (someone puts something in the cart and you get a page cannot be found), here is why:

Mal's reported this morning that their server ww4 was having problems and had to temporarily take it offline. The solution is found below:

Go to your store administration area: (yoursite.com/storeadmin)
Click Catalog Setup
In the Mal's Server field, IF you see "ww4", you should change it to "www4".
Save that page.
Test your cart. You should be able to add to your cart again.

You can leave this setting there permanently and it will still work when ww4 comes back on.

[craftygirlsworkshop]

Thank you SOOO much for posting this! I encountered this problem earlier and panicked when I realized (completely by accident) that our cart wasn't working! I read the forum posts in Mal's and the LAST post explained what to do in plain English. Thanks for posting it here, in plain English, to help us out. I would have added it except I had to get admin approval to post anyway!

Happy Stitches,
Anna

http://craftygirlsworkshop.com

[ShoppePro]

Glad it helped. We posted it in the announcements area as well here:
http://www.shoppepro.com/support/announcements.php

Sorry about having to get forum registration approval. We were hit with 600+ spammer registrations on the forums and opted to go to an approval process to prevent future spammer problems.

[chuckebyrdwallart]

I changed the setting, but still no cart. I can't test what is not there.

[MichelleG]

FYI - Looks like currently all the servers are down at Mals currently (4-5-2010)

[ShoppePro]

All Mal's servers are currently down. We're waiting to hear from Mal's about estimated down time. This will affect your shopping cart and the ability to order/view the cart. We will update you when we have more information from them.

[Caps Creations]

Thanks Karina. It's nice to know anything in these situations.

[ShoppePro]

Sorry Cathy. I know it's frustrating. I wish there was something we could do but I'm afraid it's all in Mal's hands.

[MichelleG]

Looks like Mals is working again. I tested a few sites and they seem to be back to normal. What about you Cathy?

[Caps Creations]

Not yet.

[buffy]

Arrrrrrrrrrrg! This totally sucks!!!

It's STILL offline :'(

[louiseh]

Goodless the www4 is still offline. I have an advert in marie claire magazine which comes onut on thurs - im expecting at least some sales. this is typical - in the whole time ive been with mals it has never broken - until now when i need it most! i suppose you can only laugh, otherwise i woulod just cry!

[chuckebyrdwallart]

I think what bugs me the most is how mal's is not talking to his customers about this. We all know problems happen, but ya gotta talk to your customers, we will understand even when we do not like what we hear at least we will know. This is not a game or a silly Internet things, it is business and as such we need him to act like it is important.

Sometimes a simple " guys I am working on it" would be enough to keep the villagers at bay.

[ShoppePro]

As I mentioned in the other post, if you're totally desperate, you can just create a new Mal's account. Just go to https://www.mals-e.com/join.php and follow these steps:

- Make a note of your new Mal's ID, Mal's Server (probably ww5) and password

- Go to Mal's > Cart Setup > Payment Methods (enter your Paypal address etc.). Here's the specifics you need -- http://www.shoppepro.com/article_7/Paypal--Step-Three--Mals-Paypal-Setup.htm (outdated screenshots were used here)

- Set up your tax and shipping all over again if needed

- Go to Cart Setup > Advanced > Remote Calls and enter yourdomain.com/go/finish.php (replace yourdomain.com with your domain name) and click the POST selection and save.

- Go to your Store Admin area (yourdomain.com/storeadmin) and click on Catalog Setup

- Enter your new Mal's ID and Mal's Server number and save.

Voila, temporary working Mal's cart. Don't forget to put your Mal's ID back to the the previous one when the Mal's ww4 issue is solved. Hope that helps someone.

[MacaroyKangaroo]

Is there a way to quickly add a note to every page on the website with news of the shopping cart not working? I can just have my customers email me in the meantime....

Thanks!

[craftygirlsworkshop]

Hi,
When this happened on Friday evening I went in to my Index page, if you choose to edit the page, you can add a sort of announcement section that show up on the first page above the listings. I changed the message when I thought the cart was working again. I guess I'll have to go and change it back. But if you want to see what I'm talking about, please visit my site. The announcements are in large red letters (goes with our shop colors.)

Anna
Crafty Girls Workshop
http://craftygirlsworkshop.com

[ShoppePro]

Is there a way to quickly add a note to every page on the website with news of the shopping cart not working? I can just have my customers email me in the meantime....

Thanks!


You can also add something to SITE MESSAGE in your Site Settings page. Depending on your template and where the code for Site Message is, that might be a solution as well.

[Caps Creations]

How could we add a scrolling message across the top of all pages of our site? What html to add and where to add it?

[MacaroyKangaroo]

Thanks, Karina. I have added that...but it's really not that noticeable. A scrolling message would be perfect - great idea! I'd love to know how to do that!

[ShoppePro]

The HTML for a scrolling message would be something like this:

<MARQUEE>your text here</MARQUEE>

[MacaroyKangaroo]

Thanks....and where do I put this? Sorry for being so clueless....

[ShoppePro]

You can put it in Store Admin > Site Settings > Site Message

[ShoppePro]

While I understand everyone is frustrated, and understandably so.... before you guys get angry at Mal, I hope you understand something. This is at no fault of Mal's either. I would feel a little bit sympathetic for him instead of being angry. His server is under a DDOS attack. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial-of-service_attack . Which is at no fault of his.

Plus, remember something else. He offers a FREE service with the shopping cart, and in the many years I have been working with Mal's, nothing like this has EVER happened.

There are some evil people out there who have nothing better to do than to ruin other people's lives. It is a really sad, sad reality of the internet world. Unfortunately, us honest, hard working business owners are suffering because of it. The reality is there just isn't anything we can do at this point. Mal is doing the best he can to end the attack.

[MacaroyKangaroo]

Karina -

Thanks! Is there a way for just the scrolling part to show up at the top of the page and not all my other site setting stuff (newsletter, facebook page, etc).

Thanks so much for your help!

[ShoppePro]

I can add it to the template instead. But you would need me or Michelle to remove it for you once it comes back u p.

EDIT - Just did that for you.

[MacaroyKangaroo]

THANKS! I just filled out a ticket to have you do it - but you are even faster than that. ;D

I really appreciate your help!

Kristen

[Caps Creations]

Yes, where in the template would we add this html so that the message will go at the top of every page on the site.

And yes Karina I do understand that this is no fault of Mals. But some type of notification and updates from his end would be greatly appreciated. Now that the shock of the "cart is not operating" has worn off, I am just tyring to do what I can to let my customers know that the cart system is down and how they can still place orders.

And as suggested before (and what I had in mind to do anyway) I have emailed a Paypal invoice to the customers that actually have the patience to email me and ask me "why cant i place my order?" But have yet to receive payment. :(

I thank you Karina and your team for doing what you can to help us and keep us updated.

[AmandaB]

Yes, where in the template would we add this html so that the message will go at the top of every page on the site.

And yes Karina I do understand that this is no fault of Mals. But some type of notification and updates from his end would be greatly appreciated. Now that the shock of the "cart is not operating" has worn off, I am just tyring to do what I can to let my customers know that the cart system is down and how they can still place orders.

And as suggested before (and what I had in mind to do anyway) I have emailed a Paypal invoice to the customers that actually have the patience to email me and ask me "why cant i place my order?" But have yet to receive payment. :(

I thank you Karina and your team for doing what you can to help us and keep us updated.


Ok, hopefully it's alright if I post instructions here. ;D If you don't think this will be ok with your template designer, please don't do it - ask them for help!

If you look in your template, you should see the word %CONTENT%. You can go to the line above that and hit enter so you have a new line then enter %SITE_MESSAGE%. Save your template. Then go to your site settings and put in your message. This will work for most templates I think! Good luck!