Thank you 

Thanks for that. I switched to SMTP and all the errors indicated it was, indeed, being blocked by the server. I have contacted them, and they said some outgoing connections were blocked but they've whitelisted it now (however, still neither smtp or default mail working).

May have to find another host at this rate - I have been with these guys for almost ten years now, but the support on my recent issues have not been helpful
I had a time limit with this site, which is almost up, and it would be complete if it wasn't for the mail issue so I'm feeling pretty flat.
Crossing fingers it magically fixes itself like the seo urls did...

Thanks for your help. I want to stick with abantecart because it is way better than oc and wp once it is working.

Ok, so I manually uploaded the Twilio extension folder and reinstalled it, but have it turned off. It gets rid of the critical error, but I'm still not receiving emails from new orders or order page updates, to either the customer or the admin.

Just have mail protocol set to: Mail
no mail parameters
Alert mail: On
No additional alert emails (have tried with and without)

You can pretty much do whatever you want - you can go to admin / system /settings / checkout, and have it so customers can checkout even if stock is at zero.
Then change existing messages via languages or add in a html block to let customers know it is a back order.
Or, if all your products are back orders, just change the messages / add in the html and leave the stock full.

My impression was payment processors do not like back orders though.

Thank you in advance.
I briefly enabled twilio just to see what it was about, then I disabled it and set the IM back to default 'no im driver found'message. I know twilio is an SMS service, not email,  but when I do test orders no emails came through to either customer or admin (the order went through ok in the store though), and it came up with an immediate 'critical error' notice, as follows:

Cannot send notification. Communication driver default_twilio is disabled!
Trace: #0 /home/www/domainname/core/lib/im.php on line 335 #1
/home/www/domainname/storefront/model/account/customer.php on line 190 #2 /home/www/domainname/extensions/fast_checkout/storefront/model/extension/fast_checkout.php on line 62 #3 /home/www/domainname/extensions/fast_checkout/storefront/controller/responses/checkout/pay.php on line 1072 #4 /home/www/domainname/extensions/fast_checkout/storefront/controller/responses/checkout/pay.php on line 954

I don't want twilio, so I deleted it entirely but it hasn't stopped the error (also cleared cache).
My mail settings are correct - I just use the default mail (not smtp) and I have a working email address attached to the store. It is not sending the customer email or the admin emails. I do think it's related to that extension, as it calls it the 'default communication'. Even though I disabled it (which should have reversed any changes twilio made) and then went on to delete it after receiving errors, it must have overrode a file somewhere.

 

I found a work around for the 412 error previously mentioned. It just didn't like it when there was a - (dash) in the title of the product, so I manually remove the dash in the seo keyword section of the admin product page. Usually I just let it self generate.

 However, now I've added products they keep going to THE PAGE YOU REQUESTED CANNOT BE FOUND! as the URL says this:

domainname.com.au/index.php?_route_=category-name/product-name 

It only works if I manually change the URL to read like the seo url should  domainname.com.au/product-name.

Or if I turn off SEO urls it all works fine, but I would rather have them working.

I have contacted my host, and they directed me to go back to the developer. I have also tried turning off mod-security and it doesn't appear to make a difference. 
I double checked the .htaccess, and it all appears good, when I compare it to the .htaccess in 1.2.16 ..
Are there other files I should check?

Could I have accidentally stuffed something up - I've changed a couple of minor details in a couple of .tpl files, and otherwise only changed things in the stylesheet.

The version of PHP I had was a bit low, I had it set at 7.1.  I've set it at 7.3 which is the minimum for 1.3.2 although I have higher options. Since the 1.2.16 site is working and hosted on the same account I am cautious about changing things the sites share.

As mentioned previously, the 1.2.16 version I use on a different domain has SEO urls working perfectly, with the same host. It also doesn't care if there is a dash in the title, I usually just use the 'generate seo' option for this reason.

I would love to get them working - not just for the SEO advantage, but because I think they look more professional.

Hello,

Thanks in advance for advice. The site I'm building is not yet complete, but I have noticed an issue I want to iron out before going live.
This site uses abantecart version  1.3.2

Every now and then I get a 412 error. So far tested on chrome/desktop, firefox/desktop and chrome/phone

The error is when the link shows as follows: 
https://domainname/index.php?_route_=pagename 

However, it sometimes goes through just fine when the url is as above.

It always allows it to go through (even after throwing the error) when I alter the url to be like this:
https://domainname/pagename

I have SEO URLS turned on.
I have renamed the .htaccess.txt to .htaccess. I have added a little code at the end to force it to https. But otherwise have not altered it at all.

I do not have this error in my other abantecart site which runs smoothly, and uses 1.2.16.

The exact error is copy and pasted below

412 Error
Your request got filtered out due to possible security issues.

One or more things in your request were suspicious (defective request header, invalid cookies, bad parameters)

If you think you did nothing wrong:

try again with a different browser
avoid any evil characters inside the request url
If you are the owner of the website, you can consider revising the rules of the mod_security module or turning it off from your Web Hosting Control Panel.

Should I turn off the mod_security module? And how do I do that?

Thanks again. Australia time zone here, so I'm overdue for sleep. Will check replies in the morning.

Thanks. It definitely worked in the demo.
I haven't added any third party extensions to the new abantecart I'm working on, I'm still in the very early stages.
I've just altered a little bit of the stylesheet, the layout and the languages so far. I have removed the 'latest product' left hand column on the product page. I'll try adding it back in, but I can't see why it would make a difference.
 The other, older one might have had a couple of extensions added, I can't recall now.
 Thanks for your reply.