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PrestaShop categories block empty after migrating from osCommerce

To migrate an osCommerce webshop to PrestaShop 1.5 I used the migration module from Presto Changeo. It worked just as specified, importing categories, products and customers from a running osCommerce webshop. One important thing before you start is that the module will empty all your existing customers, categories and products in your PrestaShop so make shure you are using it on a new shop.

I’ve been working on the PrestaShop installation for a while so it was not a fresh 1.5 install but had been upgraded from 1.3 to 1.4 and then 1.5 (yes it has not been in production before). This is probably the cause of my problems that occured.

The module works fine even if the osCommerce is running on a different servern than the PrestaShop. I small php file must be uploaded on the server running the osCommerce. The import can take several hours especially if there are many products and images. The script can be running in the background emailing you the progress each 5 minutes. If the mail stops coming or you get an error 500 when running in the foreground you simply must go into the module and click resume each time an error 500 occurs until the import is completed.

After the import I could see the categories, products and customers in the back office but the front office blockcategories didn’t show any products. I found that the problem probably was caused by the support for multistore introduced in PrestaShop 1.5.

Solution: 

  1. You need to access the PrestaShop MySQL databas using phpMyAdmin.
  2. Open the table ps_categories. The id_category 1 is the root category. Find which id the home category has (it will have the field is_root_category set to 1). The home category is probably id_category 2.
  3. Open the table ps_configuration and find the key PS_ROOT_CATEGORY and make shure it has value ‘1’ (the id_category of the root category).
  4. Find the key PS_HOME_CATEGORY and make shure it has the value of id_category for the home category, probably ‘2’.
  5. Go to the back office, in the preferences menu go to the general settings. Activate multi store.
  6. In the advanced parameters menu, go to Multi store. 
  7. Click on the default group and edit your store. Select the Home category as Root category. Save the store.
  8. Go back in the preferences menu general settings and disable the multi store.

Now the categories should display in the blockcategories in the front office. 

How to move a osCommerce site

When you move an osCommerce installation from one webserver to another it often isn’t possible to just move it and update your DNS-names, unless the conditions, like paths and database users etc are exactly the same. This is a step by step guide how to do it, and if you find something that I didn’t catch, please let me know (by the Contact in the menu).

Read more

osCommerce templates

To get your own style and feel of your osCommerce webshop there are different options at hand. One is to have someone to tailor your own design. This way your web shop will be truly unique, but of course at a cost that can be high.

Other options are using free templates or buying a ready made one. Sometimes there is an option to buy a template “unique”. This means that the template will not be sold to any other customer after you have bought it. Normally you can also see how many that have bought the template before you.

By using a free or commercial template you can get a starting point from where it can be modified to fit your needs. A lot of time and effort can be saved by using a ready made template and just modifying it.

These are some sites were you can find templates or themes for your osCommerce webshop.

osCommerceTemplates.com
TemplateMonster.com
The osCommerce Store

How to change the welcome email in osCommerce

The content of the welcome email message sent to new customers in osCommerce can be changed by editing the following file(s):

catalog/includes/languages/XXXXX/create_account.php

Where XXXXX is the subdirectory for the language you wish to change the welcome email for. For example “english”. There are a number of texts that appear in the welcome email. They are beginning with:

define('EMAIL_

Make sure you make the same changes for all the languages your site supports.