Resolved Google Shopping Export - couldn't connect to host

Morning Roland

Thanks for your reply, i have queried this back with our host and they have replied as below

"It does seem from your reply that this process may constitue a loopback connection on the server. Could you confirm if this is the case with your developer? Our servers prevent scripts making HTTP (port 80) connections back to the same server that they're running on, as policy.

This is done to prevent the possibility that mis-configured scripts could enter, essentially, an "infinite loop", making call-backs to themselves. Such a situation is extremely detrimental to server performance, and would negatively impact other users also on this shared server.

Unfortunately we are not able to lift this block on a per-site or per-script basis, so you will need to see if you are able to reconfigure the script (or contact the script authors for assistance doing this), or use an alternative script that doesn't require HTTP requests to its own server."

Is this how the sef caching works? Is there any work around we can do or i can present to our host?

Kind regards

Tim

Morning Tim,

Looks like the root cause has been found

Our servers prevent scripts making HTTP (port 80) connections back to the same server that they're running on, as policy.

. That is exactly what CSVI is doing, as you can see from the code sample I sent you. CSVI is calling a URL on your server, this goes through port 80.

Is there any work around we can do or i can present to our host?

The only work around I can think of is a cumbersome one. This involves running CSVI on a different host, set the domain name to the original domain name. You should be allowed to make a connection then. This fills the sef_cache table on the different host. This table would then need to be copied to the live site.

Did you try running the SEF URL update as a cron job? I wonder if that is seen as a loopback call. If not, that would be the easiest solution.

Hi Roland

Let me give the cron job a go as i wanted to look into how to set this up anyway.

Strange thing is i have csvi on other sites with same host and this is not an issue and functions properly. I didnt want to highlight this to them in case they blocked those too!

I'll let you know how cron job goes

Kind regards

Tim

Hi Roland

Just thought i would update you on the above.

Have set up the cron jobs, but unfortunately we have the same issue with unable to connect with this also - worth a try!!

I have found a work around, in fact its how we use to use sef urls on previous versions of csvi. Instead of using the product_url field on our exports we add the sef url to the intnotes field on vm when creating the products. Then on export we instead use this field instead with column header "link"

Looks to be working ok so far!

Kind regards

Tim

Hello Tim,
Glad to know you found a solution for your issue