What is the need for HTTPS? I have PayPal Standard acct but may add others

[DavidLIR]

abantecart or anyone!,

I am still having problems with the ssl set up on my site..

I have had several posts up about it...but no resolution yet...

It may be something simple so I thought i would start with a couple questions.

  1)    In the System/settings/details page there are two spots to put the store url
Store url:     and Secure Store url:

when using the ssl should both of those have the https://mysite.com....or does the first one have http://... 
I have changed them to both https://.... and I believe it works better...but I don't know what it should be set to...

  2)   the .htaccess file for setting up the forwards....I want to set up the site so that customers could get to the store with any of the possible ways of typing in the name(my store is located at loveisreal-beleive.com/store)....ie.. loveisreal-believe.com; www.loveisreal-believe.com; http://loveisreal-believe.com; Sooooo do I need to have rewrites for this in the .htaccess that is under /store...Or do I need rewrites that are directly under the loveisreal-believe htaccess?

  3)   and just to add another question...perhaps there is another way to set up the ssl entirely???  It occurs to me that perhaps I could set up the ssl certs directly on the loveisreal-believe.com/store...then I could forward the root domain to the store? perhaps this would solve the problem I am having...

here is the problem...when I try to reach the website/store I get an error of not found....even though others say they are getting in...If I am having problems then others may as well...I have cleared the cache on abantecart...and on my browser...still problem getting in...my webhosting found a problem with the ip having one for my account and one for the ssl...so they supposedly fixed this...still not getting in....unless I type the whole thing....https://loveisreal-believe....etc.

obviously something is not set up right...I would sure appreciate some help with this...or any part of it...

Thanks all,
David

[buddahboy]

Hello David - I went to your site http://www.loveisreal-believe.com/store/ and also http://loveisreal-believe.com/store/ accessed it fine.  Went to login and then create account and it switched over to https as intended to.  As you explain there is not anything in root of that domain.  I am not well versed in the use of .htaccess so what I've done is put an index.html in root with a meta refresh forwarding tag set to 0 or 1 seconds and forward it to the store directory. 

I attach a screenshot of how I set up the URLs as described in the instructions near the input fields

Is your shop populated with products?  I click on the gift certificate image and I get to that category but when clicking on any of the images there for certs I get a 404 - also get 404 on almost all of the links located in the side menu so don't know if that is because those pages don't exist or some other issue. 

Looks like the ssl is doing what it's supposed to though.  Sorry if this doesn't help you much but it's all I got my friend. 

All the best
Ron

[DavidLIR]

Ron,
Thanks,
Yes everything was working perfectly until I set up the ssl...now it just does all kinds of crazy things....I personally can only get in with firefox...but IE or chrome no go...

I'm about ready to give up on the ssl...but I'm sure customers will appreciate it...

by the way, I checked out your site.  very nice...  Now, your site is working exactly how I want mine to work...the main site is just http and the cart changes to https.

can you tell me how you have your website configured....It seems like there is something that is set up wrong....Now, when you went into my site...it goes directlly to the ssl doesn't it? showing https:// because that is how I get it...

Thanks for your help...

David

[buddahboy]

Hi David - when I went to your site I used the http:// protocol with and without the www and I got your store but not with an https://  -  that only came on when I went to create an account, as it should.  Did you install the cert on the root domain? 

So you say that your store was populated and now can't get to products?  If so maybe try turning off SEO URLs - system > system > settings   and see if that is the problem. 

I accessed your site with Chrome and Firefox using the same methods described above.  When I clicked on "Login" then under "I am a new customer" clicked "continue" and at that point the SSL began functioning so it seems to be okay - think you may have a different problem as the pages with SEO names, like About Us for example, get 404s - I don't know how the htaccess you have in the directory is written you may want to rename it to something not relevant and test it with and without SEO URLs

Thanks for the compliment on the shop, I was fortunate to find AbanteCart through my Softolicious and I really love it.  The default color was actually what I was going to use anyway, how cool is that.  I find the shop very user friendly, elegant and well developed and I am very happy with it. 

Good luck with your issue, I'm sure it is something simple - it is always some small thing, right? 

All the best David
Ron

[abolabo]

Ron,
Thanks,
Yes everything was working perfectly until I set up the ssl...now it just does all kinds of crazy things....I personally can only get in with firefox...but IE or chrome no go...

I'm about ready to give up on the ssl...but I'm sure customers will appreciate it...

by the way, I checked out your site.  very nice...  Now, your site is working exactly how I want mine to work...the main site is just http and the cart changes to https.

can you tell me how you have your website configured....It seems like there is something that is set up wrong....Now, when you went into my site...it goes directlly to the ssl doesn't it? showing https:// because that is how I get it...

Thanks for your help...

David

when i try to open your site via ssl in Firefox i got warning:  ssl_error_bad_cert_domain
I think you should to ask domain registrar tech support.
It's not AbanteCart related issue.

[junkyard]

We do see your GeoTrust cert in blue alright (Firefox), if we enter it as https://domain.com   and   https://domain.com/store
But like Abolabo said,  if we do it with WWW. - https://www.domain.com - we get invalid security certificate error
because your certificate was purchased only for domain.com, not for www.domain.com   (screenshot)  which is a different domain name.

Since WWW. part  in the certs is checked by the Browser's side (FF being more liberal, IE and Chrome are worse), you will continue to have this error,
unless:

1. you get in touch with Geotrust and request to include the WWW. part. Geotrust was known to have been bundling the www. with non www. versions of their RapidSSLs since long:   http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=937549

2. or, you may try redirecting all https://www.domain.com to https://domain.com  (instead of just using CNAME dns record) -- by using the standard Redirect
functionality in your cpanel. There you may even add HTTP->HTTPS default redirect for the whole domain, because currently users can also access it as http://domain.com

Messing around the .htaccess may bring all kinds of issues so is not recommended, unless you yourself are comfortable with it.
But to be blunt about it,  the SSL  (with all the hype around it)  isn't worth the trouble you are going through.

[DavidLIR]

Abolabo, Junkyard,

I appreciate your helpful suggestions...Could you check again and see if you are still finding errors?  I believe things are fixed now as there were some errors on the hosting side...I am not getting the error on firefox that you mentioned (junkyard) I believe I have solved that by forwarding both site and www.site to site/store. 

I am mainly concerned that customers can get to the store by way of loveisreal-believe.com ,   they should see http:// for the main store and when they go to cart or set up account they will see https://

Great site, I appreciate all you folks do!

David

[abolabo]

Abolabo, Junkyard,

I appreciate your helpful suggestions...Could you check again and see if you are still finding errors?  I believe things are fixed now as there were some errors on the hosting side...I am not getting the error on firefox that you mentioned (junkyard) I believe I have solved that by forwarding both site and www.site to site/store. 

I am mainly concerned that customers can get to the store by way of loveisreal-believe.com ,   they should see http:// for the main store and when they go to cart or set up account they will see https://

Great site, I appreciate all you folks do!

David

nope... still ssl warning for url https://www.loveisreal-believe.com/

[DavidLIR]

Abolabo,
Ok,  but the only way you get to this warning is if you type out the full ssl address with www.

https://www.loveisreal-believe.com/

Am I correct? I can find out if there is a way to forward the https to http...my c-panel does not allow to add the s after the http of the domain to be forwarded..I can only add it to the fwd to domain.  I just want to be sure that it doesn't create a loop with what is already there as it is finally working the way it is supposed to for the store...Is there any reason the average customer would receive an alert of bad domain?  if you put in www.loveisreal-believe.com it forwards to the correct site.  Appreciate your thoughts on this.

Thank you,
David

[abolabo]

can you regenerate ssl-certificate with CN (common name) www.loveisreal-believe.com instead loveisreal-believe.com?
Did you tried?
i think CN with www will cover domain.

[DavidLIR]

Abolabo,

My hosting is providing the ssl cert which I have already paid for...it covers only with www. or without- not both
my perception is the folks on the internet are moving to without www. domains... for easier access, so I set it up for without www. for the ssl cert...

perhaps the other question I just pm you will cover this as well.

David

[abolabo]

it's very strange situation...
if you have wildcard certificate and CN without www  your certificate must to cover all your subdomains (incl. www.).
Try to ask your hosting provider support. May be you should to add point as prefix to CN. who knows

[DavidLIR]

the cert is not supposed to be wildcard cert...but they have set up a wildcard in forward...is this what you refer to?

[llegrand]

David,

Most certs come with a 30 day money back guarantee.  You might check and see if yours did.  I know RapidSSL do.

As an additional thought - Abantecart can he turn of the SSL switch within the cart without further conflicts?  That way he could get the redirects in sync and test for the the home tab issue.

My thoughts are there are too many pieces here that aren't set up correctly yet, and stepping back to a basic setup and getting that working would be a good thing.

Lee