Groups: Member
Joined: 9/18/2009
Posts: 20
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Hello. I'm looking for some help with a Zazzle API-based site I've just launched. Basically: • you configure a monster via a Flash interface • once you click Save, a high-res image is generated and uploaded to the server • then you click a product button, and it creates the linkover to the API templates Here's the site: http://www.memakemonster.com/make.html
The Problem: • once in a while, I get the error message, with a link and a request for me to declare my domains (which are correct - there's only one domain) • whenever that message comes up, if you click on the image link (even instantly) the image always appears - telling me that the image is correctly and completely uploaded to my server I'm trying to build a business around this, but the error pages are causing less tech-savvy users (which are most of them) to give up before generating the product - especially because that error page has no link back to my site Any thoughts? I'd really like to talk to a tech person at Zazzle to see what I could do, if anything, to eliminate these errors. And if anyone else is using this kind of API interface and having these errors (or learned how to avoid them), that would be great, too. Thanks in advance, Steve
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Groups: Member
Joined: 9/18/2009
Posts: 20
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It's been a week, and this is still happening. Still not sure why, or what I can do about it.
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Groups: ProSeller
Joined: 2/24/2005
Posts: 65
Location: Montreal
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Hey thats a cool site, it worked for me.
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Groups: Member
Joined: 1/8/2009
Posts: 1,007
Location: London
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I'm no techie so can't help there. Just wanted to say what a brilliant idea for a site. Good luck with it. 
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Groups: Member
Joined: 6/3/2009
Posts: 383
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FYI - I did it twice and received the error message. Then I closed the browser window and went back to it and it successfully did it with no error.
Go figure.
T
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Groups: Member
Joined: 9/18/2009
Posts: 20
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Thank you all for the compliments - that's really nice to hear.
I've had a lot of interest and activity so far, but only a couple purchases.
I e-mailed Zazzle's dev support late Friday, and haven't heard back yet.
It's absolutely intermittent - it can work 20 times in a row, fail the next 20 times, work every other time for hours. I add a delay to make sure the file is uploaded, and that seems to work for a while... the more failure. It's a tricky thing.
I did add a "try again" error message and button, so the user doesn't have to refresh the browser window and lose the monster he/she's created - but since I can't detect if the user's seen the error, I force everyone to see that once, which is just as confusing. And they already see the error window, with a link to the file and "Declare your domain" - some friends have been frustrated by that, understandably.
I appreciate the feedback. If I get a solution, I'll definitely post it here.
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Groups: Member
Joined: 9/18/2009
Posts: 20
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Oh, and you can always make the monster and download/save it - feel free to do that. It's fun, - or so I hear.
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Groups: Member
Joined: 5/12/2008
Posts: 2,131
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Love the site and the way you set it up. I tried it and it worked on the second try. I've tried setting up an API site of my photos so people could choose one of my photos and add it to an item of their choice. Could never get it to work even once so your doing better than me I've asked several times in this form for help but no-one knows what to do. Never heard from anyone from Zazzle on this even tho they've answered other issues through the forms. If they apparently have no interest in helping their store owners with this option they may as well just get rid of it. JMHO
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Groups: Member
Joined: 9/18/2009
Posts: 20
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Thanks for testing it out, FNolan - if it fails on the first time, it always works on the second try - it's almost as if the process has to "warm up" with that first attempt. The problem is, of course, I don't think most users will stick around for that second try. I've found only a few other sites that use the API - a couple are big corporations (M&Ms) but these two are smaller companies/projects: http://license-plate-shirts.com/http://vivavoodoo.com/The first one is simpler, and never seems to fail - they're just imposing text on a template. The second one is more like my site (actually generating a high-res image on the server, from low-res/vector Flash pieces), and it does fail fairly often - although they seem to be able to detect the fail before popping open the window, and if the fail happens, they offer you the option to try again. I've contacted the team to get more info, but never heard back. I think Zazzle's going to get this working sooner or later - hopefully sooner. There's too much opportunity here. The problem is, I can't even tell if the fail is happening because of something I'm doing (or not doing) or because of something going on on Zazzle's end. I've read the API documentation a few times, but it doesn't mention this issue. I'll keep everyone informed of, hopefully, success.
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Groups: Member
Joined: 4/26/2009
Posts: 42
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Your monster site is awesome! I did try clicking through to add my monster to Zazzle products, and failed every time. Came back another day, and failed every time again. I tried going to the voodoo site, and failed every time there as well. Huh. The license plate shirts worked fine for me, though. I'm thinking the file they transfer may be very small compared to the others???
Honestly, this is striking me as possibly related to the problem I'm currently experiencing with Zazzle. Two weeks ago I launched a web site using Zazzle's Store Builder, and when I tested everything it all worked perfectly. However, sometime in those last two weeks, the marketplace feed is constantly dying / non-responsive. It hangs forever trying to load, with no activity on the modem, then it seems to time out eventually and displays an error. Even though I'm using ZSB and you're using the API, I can't help but wonder if the two problems are related. It certainly seems to be the same time frame. I filed a bug report and they said it would be forwarded on to the tech team. I encourage everyone having problems like mine or memakemonster's to send a bug report as well. It's got to be something their end, and I REALLY hope they resolve it soon.
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Groups: Member
Joined: 10/27/2008
Posts: 1
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Looks like I'm having the same problems as okthatsfun. I don't use the Create API but I do use the feeds to display products and product information on my offsites for affiliating and my own stores. Today I've noticed some intermittent problems with these feeds. Every few requests it comes back with empty data. This is not so nice as it means lots and lots of broken/empty pages on my sites. I just contacted supported and hope that someone is looking at this. I seem to be only having problems when getting product information. These feeds work fine: http://feed.zazzle.com/{gallery}/feed?pg=1&isz=large&ps=100&src=zstore&ft=gb&opensearch=true&cg={sectionnumber} These feeds only work sometimes: http://feed.zazzle.com/feed?qs={product_id}&opensearch=1&ft=gb&isz=328
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Groups: Member
Joined: 4/26/2009
Posts: 42
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Birdorable, yup, that's what I'm seeing, too! In my case, the examples look different as I am using Zazzle Store Builder. So this code, like your first example, pulls straight from my store and works 100% of the time:
$_GET['contributorHandle'] = 'galleryname';
$_GET['productLineId'] = 'sectionnumber';
$_GET['productType'] = 'anyproducttypenumber';
include "../../include/zstore.php";
Whereas this code, like your second example, is pulling from the general marketplace and NOT WORKING most of the time (it worked fine previously!):
$_GET['contributorHandle'] = '';
$_GET['productLineId'] = '';
$_GET['productType'] = 'anyproducttypenumber';
$_GET['keywords'] = 'keywordhere';
include "../../include/zstore.php";
Very frustrating! I too am winding up with many blank and broken pages from this. Thanks for reporting it to support, I hope others do as well!
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Groups: Member
Joined: 9/18/2009
Posts: 20
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Thanks for the feedback, okthatsfun - I appreciate it.
I spent a couple days working with Zazzle's dev team, and they looked into my errors. They were really helpful - it seems that, even though I didn't suspect it was this reason, it's just a matter of the files not being fully uploaded at the point when they were clicked.
I'm still not totally sure this is the reason, but they found nothing else wrong with my link structure. I greatly lengthened the progress bar on the page (really, just a delay to prevent the user from clicking a product link too soon) and so far, I haven't had the error in two days.
One thing to point out - you said it failed every time. I'm not sure if you meant you were going back to the site, re-saving, then trying again - or if you were just clicking the product icons over and over again. If it was the latter, that's no surprise - one thing I learned is that, once a linkover fails (in my case, probably because the file was still being processed on the server) there's a 2 minute cache on Zazzle's end (not the user's end) that will keep giving you that error using that same link.
And yes, the license plate site, I believe, uses just one graphic that's already part of the Zazzle template - so they don't need to upload or process it - just text - which I'm pretty sure is why it works so quickly and so consistently.
So that means, if the user clicks before the file is processed, they get the error - and even if the file is fully processed one second later, they'll continue getting that error for about two minutes.
They also told me they do some server maintenance to the API (not the full maintenance which gives you an error page telling you they're working on the API) every night between 11 pm and 5 am (probably West Coast time) - and that could have caused the errors.
I hope this helps somebody out there - and I hope you get your ZSB/feeds issues resolved.
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Groups: Member
Joined: 4/26/2009
Posts: 42
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Hi Memakemonster - just to clarify, I had been re-saving and trying again on your site, not just re-clicking on the products.
It's nice the dev team is working with you on this. Regretably, I still can't get my monster onto a Zazzle product though, I'm still getting the same error. Just so you know, I've tried starting over from scratch, changing my existing monster, waiting several minutes between saving my monster and clicking on a product, and waiting several minutes between trying different monsters. No dice! That having been said, maybe I'm just an outlier. I guess wait to see if other people can or cannot click all the way through...
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Groups: ProSeller
Joined: 2/27/2008
Posts: 1,789
Location: Pascagoula
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not to hijack, but "okthatsfun", your issue is being generated because of use of keywords. If you just pull the feed for a specific store or category it doesnt do that, only when you use keywords.
Ive got a few sites with hundreds of feeds, and only the feeds that utilize keywords either thru the config file of zsb or custom made feeds are the ones having errors.
Ive not got any respons from zazzle on this and ive emailed and finally made a post, but still nothing.
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Groups: Member
Joined: 5/12/2008
Posts: 2,131
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FishTsdotcom wrote:not to hijack, but "okthatsfun", your issue is being generated because of use of keywords. If you just pull the feed for a specific store or category it doesnt do that, only when you use keywords.
Ive got a few sites with hundreds of feeds, and only the feeds that utilize keywords either thru the config file of zsb or custom made feeds are the ones having errors.
Ive not got any respons from zazzle on this and ive emailed and finally made a post, but still nothing. Seems the search is working fine on my site Bill. I went to the 2010 Calendar section and used just "flowers" as the search word and it showed over 6k items. Worked fine. Then from that screen I did "red and flowers and blooms" and it displayed 16 items. Then I used "roses" and it brought up 180 items. So at least on my site and with IE7 it appears to work. Feel free to try it out with your FF and let me know if it doesn't work for you. That'll at least tell you it's a FF issue and not Zazzle.
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Groups: ProSeller
Joined: 2/27/2008
Posts: 1,789
Location: Pascagoula
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search works fine once your in a specific store or category, if your doing a product search.
Its if you use keywords to do the search for the feed. Like using the keyword in your php or config file.
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Groups: Member
Joined: 4/26/2009
Posts: 42
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FishTs, yes, that's what I'm finding, too. The feeds from my stores haven't had any problems, I'm only having trouble with searches using keywords from the marketplace. FishTs, when did you notice this problem start on your sites? I know two weeks ago my site didn't have this problem. FNolan, yup, your site works fine! Wish mine did (it used to!) Great site, by the way!
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Groups: Member
Joined: 5/12/2008
Posts: 2,131
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FishTsdotcom wrote:search works fine once your in a specific store or category, if your doing a product search.
Its if you use keywords to do the search for the feed. Like using the keyword in your php or config file. Hmm, I'll have to play with that some and see what I can see. okthatsfun wrote:FNolan, yup, your site works fine! Wish mine did (it used to!)
Great site, by the way! Thanks  It's actually just basic. Mainly what Zazzle gave us, just put inside a CMS website.
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Groups: Member
Joined: 9/18/2009
Posts: 20
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Ugh - thanks okthatsfun - now I've had the error again, as a few friends have. This problem is the definition of intermittent.
I'm going to work on my code, to verify the file's complete uploadingness.
One thing I did note - when I get the error, and try to recreate the link to that same file later, like 15 minutes later, it works again. So wherever the problem occurs - on my server, or on Zazzle's - eventually it does clear. The dev team verified this as well.
And then on the flipside, I've had a few random people get to the site and build a monster with no problems, and then order a product. Weird.
Maybe the answer is e-mailing people a link an hour later, instead of giving them the ability to click right there and then. Yeah, users will love that delayed gratification.
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