Root-cause fixes restore product editing and live postage quotes

The challenge

An Australian web and design agency supports a retailer of custom rubber stamps. The shop runs on an older release of its e-commerce platform and includes a custom preview that lets customers see their stamp text in different fonts and colours, along with third-party modules for file uploads, payments and Australia Post shipping quotes.

The agency first asked us to assess what a move to the current platform version would involve. Meanwhile, two problems were affecting the live shop. Staff editing products with many options found that changes on later tabs simply did not save. Separately, Australia Post shipping options had stopped appearing at checkout, so customers could not see delivery costs.

What we did

• Upgrade assessment. We reviewed the installed modules and custom code and listed what would need to be redeveloped for the current platform version, together with the data that would need migrating, so the agency could plan with its client.
• Product editing fix. We traced the lost edits to the server's limit on form data: products with many options sent more fields than the limit allowed, so later tabs were dropped. We fixed this so complete product forms save correctly.
• Postage quotes restored. We found that the Australia Post module used `create_function()`, which newer PHP versions no longer support, and called an API address over plain http. We replaced the deprecated function and switched the call to https, which brought the shipping options back.

Tech stack

PHP, OpenCart 2.0.3.1, Australia Post Postage Assessment Calculator API