FAQs - phpAuction.net: web based auction software

Software Settings and Configuration Questions & Problems

• Cron is usually available in all Unix/Linux installations. It is a "daemon" which allows you to schedule programs and scripts execution. If you want to read something more about cron, go here:
  
  http://www.aota.net/Script_Installation_Tips/cronhelp.php4
  
  If you have your domain hosted within a share server, please skip the next instructions and go to the last section in the bottom: "IF YOUR DOMAIN IS HOSTED IN A SHARE SERVER"
  
  We will assume you know what cron is and how it works. The first dilemma depends on your PHP installation:
  
  * Compiled CGI
  * Apache module
  
  
  ** Compiled CGI **
  The first thing is to add the necessary command to your crontab file. Edit /etc/crontab (or wherever your crontab file is) and add the following line:
  
  * * * * * php /path/to/your/cron.php
  
  execute the following from the command line:
  
  Shell> crontab crontab
  
  Be sure cron.php has the necessary permissions to be executable.
  This will run cron.php every minute.
  
  
  ** Apache module **
  If you have PHP installed as an Apache module the approach is quite different.
  First of all you need access to lynx (be sure it's installed on your server).
  You simply have to edit your /etc/crontab file and add the following line:
  
  * * * * * lynx -dump -TERM=VT100 http://www.somedomain.com/cron.php
  
  Note you generally have to specify the compete URL: depending on your lynx configuration the URL should be a relative one but I suggest to always use the absolute reference like in the example above, since it always works.
  Save /etc/crontab
  
  Again execute the following from the command line:
  
  Shell> crontab crontab
  
  That's it.
  
  
  IF YOURS DOMAIN IS HOSTED IN A SHARE SERVER
  
  If you have your auctions site hosted within a share server, most likely you have tools to create cronjobs in the Web Based Domain Manager such as Plesk or cPanel. Some servers do not respond properly. In this case, please ask support to your hosting company in order to set the cronjob pointed to the cron.php file
  
  

  How do I set up a cron job to run cron.php?

• If you lost or forgot your admin login information follow the steps below:
  - access your database via phpMyAdmin
  - empty the _adminusers table ( will change depending on the package you are running)
  - Access the admin login page
  - You'll be required to create a new admin user
  - Once submitted the form, you'll be redirected again to the login page and you'll be able to login using the username/password of the admin user you just created

  I forgot my admin password. What can I do?

• If you are uploading a logo with the same name of an existing logo, check that the logo in the "uploaded" directory n your server has write permissions.
  
  Also check that the "uploaded" directory has the proper write permissions for PHP script on your server.

  I try to upload my logo from the admin backend but it does no change. What can I do?

• If you get a mistaken URL in the sign up confirmation e-mail, that's because the Site URL is set incorrectly.
  
  Please note that it must be the URL of your installation (i.e. http://www.yourdomain.com/auction/) and must include an ending slash.
  
  Login into your Administration Backend and check that URL under SETTINGS|General Settings.
  

  The signup confirmation URL in the confirmation e-mail users receives when they sign up seems not to work. What can I do?

• These are the possible causes:
  
  - You haven?t uploaded your key-file to the includes/ directory. In this case, it's necessary to login you http://www.phpauction.net/login.php account and download the license key. Once downloaded, just upload it to the directory "includes" of your installation.
  
  - The domain and/or SSL domain in your customer's record does not fit to the URL where you have installed Phpauction.
  
  IE: The URL registered at phpauction is mywebsite.com and you installed under mywebsite.com/auction
  
  In this case, you need to request a correction of your license key by opening a Support Ticket in the Help Desk.
  
  - Your key-file has not public read permissions. In this case, please just set proper read permissions. Usually they are 755.
  
  - You might not have the minimal servers requirements, please check your server compatibility with the Phpauction test compatibility script, upload it somewhere to your server and point your browser to it.
  

  I receive the following error: Missing or wrong Phpauction Key. What can I do?

• Be sure your web server has SSL support and that the SSL url you entered is correct. It must contain an ending slash.
  
  IE: https://www.mywebsite.com/auction/
  

  I set my SSL server through the administration back-end but it seems it doesn't work. I receive an error message stating the page cannot be accessed or my page gets hung down.

• No. First of all double check that e-mails addresses are correct.
  If yes, the problem could be in the sendmail program of your server (or the SMTP server you use).
  
  Phpauction only makes a call to the php mail() function that simply passes the parameters to sendmail program according to the sendmail_path in your php.ini file.
  
  The mail() function only does queue the email to be sent in the sendmail's queue. If the mail was queued sucessfully, the mail() function returns a TRUE value.
  
  To be sure PHP can send e-mails on your server, create the following simple PHP script and upload it to your server.
  
  
<? mail("yourmail@yourserver.com","Does it work?","Yes,
it does");?>

  
  Please replace the address "yourmail@yourserver.com" with a valid email of your own in order to confirm you receive it correctly.
  
  Save it as testemail.php
  
  Point your browser to the script:
  
  www.yourauctionsite.com/testemail.php
  
  a blank window will appear and you should receive the corresponding e-mail. If not contact your hosting provider and ask them about this problem.
  

  Phpauction seems not to send any e-mail to the user. Do I have to set something in the admin back-end in order to work this out?

• By default the pictures limit is 50 Kbytes. This value can be modified in the Admin Backend >> Settings >> Pictures Upload
  
  Note: The value is in bytes so for example 1024 Kbytes will be 1 MB

  Where can I reset the size of allowable pictures?

• The key-file is checked to fit the exact URL where the package is installed. It checks both URL and SSL URL.
  
  In this case probably you registered a different SSL URL when purchased from the one you are activating now. Please contact us through Help Desk and give us the new SSL URL. We will change your data and you will have to generate the new key-file from your http://www.phpauction.net/login.php account and upload it to the directory "includes" of your installation in order to fix this problem.

  I have activated SSL support and receive the following error: Missing or wrong Phpauction Key.

• For 3.0 and higher versions the look & feel is managed through CSS styles & themes (please check the css tutorial for more information at http://www.phpauction.net/manuals.php).
  
  Each Phpauction theme contains one style.css file that contains as well the "style classes". These classes govern the look & feel. The accurate CSS file is, for example:
  
  software_installation_folder/themes/phpauction_blue/style.css or software_installation_folder/themes/degraded_navy/style.css
  
  In order to modify fonts and colors, the file styles.css that corresponds to your current theme in use, must have writing permissions (chmod 777) while you are changing them in the Admin Backend. Once you are satisfied with the fonts and colors, you may set permissions back to non-writing permissions such as 755 for security reasons.
  
  This must be applied to all the themes in the folder "themes". If this doesn't fix the problem please contact the support team through the Help Desk.

  I change the fonts and colors settings but it is not reflected on the site and/or shows an error that CSS file cannot be modified.

• Has been released the last version of messages.inc.php in the Updates & Upgrades tool to handle this problem out. If you have no problems with the option:
  
  Admin Backend >> Auctions >> Auction Extension Settings
  
  just ignore this patch. Just a few owners have it.
  

  In Admin > Auctions > Auctions Extentions Settings, if I put any value in I got this error: Error: update PHPAUCTIONXL_auctionextension SET status='enabled', timebefore=30, extend=60 Unknown column 'timebefore' in 'field list

• Yes, the invoice is really basic. There 3 files to enhace with HTML your invoices, and they are:
  
  includes/invoice_footer_text.EN.inc.txt
  includes/invoice_header_text.EN.inc.txt
  includes/invoice.EN.inc.txt
  

  I want to have a more professional email when sending a invoice. It now is a simple text file. Looks plain.

• Hotmail has very aggresive SPAM filters. Increasing oftenly. And this is the reason email sent to Hotmail sometimes takes hours to be delivered or sometimes are actually not delivered as well.
  
  PHPAUCTION uses through all the package the function mail as shown below:
  
  mail($email,"$MSG_XXX,$message,"From:".$SETTINGS["sitename"]." <".$SETTINGS["adminmail"].">\n"."Content-Type: text/html; charset=$CHARSET");
  
  This is a basic and fully qualifieds email. It has a sender name, sender email address and it matches the domain name. It means that the sender matches the domain name and actually is being sent form the server that hosts the domain name. Everything matches and mails are not ?domain spoofing?. But... there are networking architechture, mail server settings and configurations and more stuff (masquerading, clusters, etc) complicated to explain here that are detected by Hotmail and other email services as SPAM even emails sent are not SPAM. This is getting complicated not only for Phpauciton Software but a lot of program that relies on *nix?sendmail? program. We are strongly studying a real solution but it needs to modify the entire system.
  

  I have just realized that system e-mails to hotmail accounts are not received by users. All other users with pop / isp providers accounts do receive e-mails.