How To: Find out about Rate Calculation Issues¶

Realtime shipping methods use their own servers to calculate shipping rates and return them to the store to be displayed to customers. However, what if the third-party server is down? Then CS-Cart won’t receive any response or rates, so the shipping method won’t appear at checkout.

This could prevent a customer from making a purchase, especially if the store has no alternative shipping methods, and customers end up having nothing to choose from. Until version 4.8.1, admins could only find out about this issue by receiving a message from a customer or checking the store and going through the checkout process themselves.

Although not all problems can be solved on the store’s end, it’s better to be informed about them. That’s why CS-Cart & Multi-Vendor 4.8.1 (and newer versions) can send email notifications to admins about such issues. To receive those notifications:

1. Go to Settings → Logging in the administration panel of your store.
2. Find the Realtime shipping errors checkbox in the Requests section and make sure it is ticked. This checkbox does 2 things:
   • If the shipping rate calculation service doesn’t respond within the allotted time, this will be logged under Administration → Logs.
   • If 3 such errors occur with a shipping method within an hour, an email notification about it will be sent to the Site administrator e-mail address from Settings → Company.
3. Click the Save button.