Progress Bar Never Stops

You’re seeing the green “Loading… Please Wait” progress bar continuosly running – it never stops and comes back with any data.

If this is a new setup, then it’s possible that your web host does not have a library called “JSON” enabled. Just ask them to enable it for your server. It’s rather simple to do, and we’ve never seen a host that won’t do this for their customers.

If it’s an old setup, and it was working previously, then your host made some changes that caused the library to stop working. So you still need their help in resolving the issue.

Error Message: “There was an error returning data’”.

One possibility is that your database or web site is temporarily down, slow, or plain not responding for some reason. So DAP cannot connect to your database, and comes back with this error.

Or it could also be the “Progress Bar Never Stops” issue from above.

DAP itself is a shopping cart. And DAP also integrates with other carts and Payment Processors, such as:

• 1SiteAutomation.com (a 1Shoppingcart.com private label)
• Paypal Standard
• Paypal Website Payments Pro
• e-Junkie (e-J does not allow recurring payments)
• Authorize.net
• WorldPay
• ClickBank

And because DAP integrates with 1ShoppingCart, in turn, it essentially integrates with all payment providers support by 1ShoppingCart.

1-Click Upsells

If you use DAP as a shopping cart, then you can do 1-Click Upsells/Downsells like the pros. DAP allows you to do 1-Click Upsells using Authorize.net, Paypal Website Payments Pro and Paypal Standard.

Of course, if you need advanced shopping cart features – like ability to calculate shipping, tax, and coupons, then you’re better off using 1ShoppingCart.

1ShoppingCart & GoDaddy

If you want automated recurring order processing using 1ShoppingCart, then DAP needs to be able to process the recurring email notifications sent by 1ShoppingCart, which it does on the back-end when the DAP-Cron job runs every 10 minutes. However, if you’re using Godaddy as your web host (doesn’t matter if you’re using them as the domain name registrar), then because GoDaddy disables a key PHP library (“imap”) on all their servers for whatever reason, DAP is not able to do process the recurring order email notifications from 1ShoppingCart.

So if you’re using 1SC & GoDaddy hosting, you will have to end up doing manual cancellations if any member cancels their subscription, or if their credit card fails and their recurring payments don’t get processed.

But 1ShoppingCart order processing works great with all other hosts.

Q: What’s the difference between storing files on Amazon S3 and serving it using the S3MediaVault.com plugin, as opposed to hosting the files right on your web site and having DAP serve them directly?

A: If you have a large amount of video, audio and other files, then a lot of people viewing and downloading them from your site (if they are stored on your site itself) will use up a lot of resources on your server – like site loading time, server memory, server bandwidth, etc – and your site could slow down considerably.

Plus of course, there are also bandwidth charges that your host will charge you with for all of those downloads, which are usually not very cheap.

Instead, if the files are stored on Amazon S3, then you don’t have to worry about your site slowing down, or you using up too much bandwidth and getting slapped with huge bandwidth fees, because the files are being served from Amazon’s huge S3 servers which have tons more resources and speed compared to your web host. Plus in the long run, the bandwidth is also going to be cheaper on S3 compared to your host.

And don’t put too much faith in your web host’s “Unlimited Bandwidth” clause, because if you read the fine-print carefully, you’ll see that as per their TOS, if you consume large amounts of bandwidth and use too much of the server resources, this could cause other web sites (belonging to others) on the same server to slow down and have a degrade in performance. And they could consider this abuse of their TOS, and could either slap you with huge bandwidth or server utilization fees, or even ask you to take your web site elsewhere because you’re causing issues for other site owners on the same server.

Here’s how you can move an existing DAP installation from one host  – or domain – to another.

• Log in to your web hosting control panel, go to “phpMyAdmin”, select your WordPress database (which is where the DAP tables are also installed, by default)

• Do an “Export” of just the DAP tables. Select the “SQL” option and select “Save as File”. All DAP database tables start with the text “dap_”. Save this file on your desktop – let’s say you call it “dapexport.sql” (it could also be “dapexport.txt” – does not matter what the exact extension is – .txt or .sql).

• Make a back up of the dap-config.php file (located in the “dap” directory on your old site/domain) on your desktop

• At your new site, install WordPress
• Copy the database info from your new blog’s “wp-config.php” to the “dap-config.php” file stored on your desktop.
• Then log in to your web hosting control panel of your new site, go to “phpMyAdmin”, select your WordPress database, go to the “SQL” tab, open the export file from above (dapexport.sql), copy the contents, paste into the SQL tab and hit “Go”. All dap data from your old site is now on your new site.
• Upload all dap files to your new site (don’t do full installation – just upload the files).
• Also upload the LiveLinks files to wp-content/plugins/ .
• Upload the new dap-config.php file from your desktop to the “dap” folder on your new site.
• Log in as WP admin, and activate the LiveLinks plugin. It should give you a warning that DAP is already installed. That’s ok, that’s what we want it to say.
• That’s it. DAP is now moved over from your old site to your new site.
• Log into your DAP Dashboard using your old DAP admin login info, and you’re all set.

The Basics Of Sending Email Through Your Web Site

DAP is not an email service (like, say, Aweber).

DAP is just a script – a tool, like Microsoft Outlook or Thunderbird – that simply sends out email using your web host’s email server.

It is your web host’s mail server that actually sends out the email to the recipient. So once DAP sends out the email, it has no control over what happens next.

It’s just like when you put your (regular mail) letter in the mailbox (post box). It is then up to the Postal Service to actually pick up your letter, and deliver to the destination address.

So if the emails that DAP sends out don’t get delivered to your recipients, there could be more than one reason for that.

Autoresponder Emails Not Going Out

If yours is a new site setup, then this is usually becausthe hourly cron-job has not been setu.

However, if the emails were going out fine previously, and suddenly stopped going out, then it usually is because…

• Something changed on your host that caused the cron to stop working.
• There is an error in the job queue, because of which DAP is unable to proceed with the remaining non-error emails. This could have happened if you tried to send out a broadcast to a CSV list, and there was an error in one of the emails from the CSV list.
• You’re trying to use a third party “SMTP” server to send out the emails, and your server is unable to connect to that server because the authentication settings you’ve configured on “Email > SMTP” are incorrect.

Steps to troubleshoot

1. Make sure that the hourly cron (dap-cron.php) is still running – you need to look at your web hosting control panel for that.
2. Go to “System > Job Queue” and scroll through any items there, and see if there are any scheduled messages there with the status “Error”. If yes, then click on the “Delete Jobs In Error” link. That will delete any jobs that can’t be processed because of an error in the email id or in the import process. Also be sure to click on “Delete Successful Jobs (till yesterday)” just to clear up old, sent emails.
3. Also go to “System > Logs” and empty the logs.
4. Go to “System > Config” and set “DAP Log Level” to “5″. That will start logging all the details you/we may need for troubleshooting.
5. Wait for the top of the next hour and then re-visit the queue and see if emails are going out.
6. If they still aren’t going out, go back to “System > Logs”, copy paste all text there, and open a new ticket with that info, of course, also giving us more details about the problem, what you have tried, etc, along with your login info for: FTP, WP Admin, DAP Admin, and Web Host Control Panel.

Server Blacklisting

If your inexpensive (read as cheap shared web host is hosting a large number of sites on one server, and one of them knowingly sends out spam (or mistakenly gets flagged for spam), that will put the email deliverability of every web site on that server in jeopardy, because your site now shares the same IP address as that of an “alleged” spammer.

So your emails get sent to junk/spam folder by Gmail and Yahoo. Or worse, they just totally disappear into the ether.

Hourly Email-Sending Limits

Almost all shared hosts have hourly email sending limits. For example, DreamHost has an outgoing limit of 300 emails per hour. Which means, a total of only 300 emails can be sent out per hour through any web site hosted on DreamHost. All of the following count towards the 300 limit:

• Emails sent by any scripts on your site – like DAP
• Your WordPress blog notification emails
• Your WordPress admin emails,
• WP forgot password emails,
• WP comment notification emails,
• Forum notification emails,
• Forum emails sent to each other by your users,
• Forum-software Admin notification emails,
• Support software user and admin notification emails
• Tell-a-friend emails
• Viral-inviter type emails
• Emails sent through Outlook or Thunderbird where you have set the outgoing SMTP server to be your web site’s SMTP server
• Emails sent by others using the same SMTP server to send out emails-  like your business partners, employees, etc
• DAP User welcome emails, Payment notification emails, Forgot password emails, Autoresponder emails, Broadcast emails, etc

So do you see how quickly you can go over that hourly limit of 300 emails per hour?

But here comes the worst part

Once you go over that limit, any emails that are actually sent by you or the scripts running on your site, will not actually result in any kind of error. The mail server will respond by saying that the email(s) has been sent successfully, but in reality, on the backend, it quietly “snuffs out” the email. Which means, it doesn’t go anywhere – just gets sent to a “blackhole”. So you keep thinking that you sent out the email. DAP keeps thinking it has sent out the email. But in reality, the emails never actually get sent.

This is the same as you actually putting your letter into the mailbox at the Post Office. But then, imagine this: The postal worker who comes to pick up your mail, quietly goes to the back of the post office and dumps it all into one giant trash can, and destroys all of the mail. So you’re thinking you actually mailed out that important check to pay your utility bill. But the utility company never gets your check, and they slam you with a late fee.

Possible Solutions

1) DAP + Aweber (most expensive, most reliable)

2) DAP + 3rd party SMTP service provider (Fusemail.com or SMTP.com) (less expensive than Aweber, slightly less reliable too)

3) DAP + Good web host (cheapest, can have mixed results – all depends on your host).

You could always use DAP and external SMTP service provider like Fusemail.com or SMTP.com to send out bulk mail through DAP while totally bypassing your web host’s email system. This is probably the next best thing to using a service like Aweber.

And if you can’t afford even that, then simply use DAP on a good web host. We ourselves use just DAP and Dreamhost‘s email servers to send out emails to all of our users.

And DAP also has built-in job queues to schedule outgoing emails while also making sure that you don’t exceed your web host’s hourly email sending limits (dreamhost’s limit is 300 emails/hour, I think). We use multiple SMTP servers from our own other web sites, all combined to be able to send a few thousand emails per hour.

But even with a lot of planning, it is easy to go over the hourly limit.

So the next time you see in your Job Queue that emails were sent out successfully, but the recipient never received it, here are some things to check:

1) It landed in your recipient’s junk/spam folder. Ask them to whitelist or add your email address to their contacts list.

2) You have overshot the limit, so you would have to actually send out the email again.

3) Try to send out broadcasts during a low-traffic time – say like later in the night – when you’re not actively sending out emails, and using up precious email counts from that hourly quota.

(Or… “DAP vs MailChimp”, “DAP vs. GetResponse”, …. “DAP vs 3rd-Party-List-Service”)

We often get asked why use Aweber (or other third-party list service) when DAP itself is an autoresponder.

So here’s a brief overview of when and why it makes sense to use DAP or Aweber.

Why Aweber

DAP is not an email service like Aweber.

DAP is just a tool – like Outlook or Thunderbird – that simply sends out email using your web host’s email server.

If your inexpensive shared web host is hosting a large number of sites on one server, and one of them sends out spam (or mistakenly gets flagged for spam), that will put the email deliverability of every web site on that servver, in jeopardy, because your site now shares the same IP address as that of an “alleged” spammer.

So your emails get sent to junk/spam folder by Gmail and Yahoo. Or worse, they just totally disappear into the ether.

Your customers never get your email. Your campaign suffers. Your conversion plunges.

This won’t happen with Aweber.

Aweber (and other premier email service providers) have staff on hand, spend a lot of time, money and resources dealing with regular ISP’s (like AOL and SBC) to make sure their lists – and their reputation – remain clean.

Which is probably why they shut down large lists without much of a warning to you, and do other similar crazy stuff. I guess it works for them – and the other Aweber users, because when you send out an email through your Aweber list, it almost always gets there in your recipient’s inbox.

Which is very cool. Which is why they also charge so much for their service.

But if you can’t afford their high fees, then you can of course use DAP’s built-in email autoresponder, whose deliverability is only as good as your host’s spam reputation

Of course, you can always use DAP and external SMTP service provider like Fusemail.com or SMTP.com to send out bulk mail through DAP while totally bypassing your web host’s email system. This is probably the next best thing to using Aweber only.

And if you can’t afford even that, then simply use DAP on a good web host. We ourselves use just DAP and Dreamhost‘s email servers to send out emails to all of our users. And DAP also has built-in job queues to schedule outgoing emails while also making sure that you don’t exceed your web host’s hourly email sending limits (dreamhost’s limit is 300 emails/hour, I think). We use multiple SMTP servers from our own other web sites, all combined to be able to send a few thousand emails per hour.

So given a choice, here are your email options in the exact order listed.

1) DAP + Aweber: Match made in heaven

2) DAP + 3rd Party List Services: 2nd best option

3) DAP + Your Web Host: Very usable and workable option as long as you are hosting with a decent host.

Feel free to comment below if you have any questions.

What are the minimum web-hosting requirements to run DAP?

• PHP version 5+
• MySQL 4+
• PDO support (for PHP, enabled for MySQL)
• JSON support (for Ajax)
• Ability to run Cron Jobs (scheduled jobs, very useful when sending out autoresponder & broadcast emails)

These are commonly available on most web hosts.

And we’ve seen that most web hosts enable these for your web site, at no additional cost, if you just asked them.

Check with your web host. If they can’t help, then here are a couple of recommended, DAP-Certified web hosts.

DAP works off-the-shelf on almost all decent web hosts.

But as in any industry, some hosts are just outdated, run old, outdated and deprecated versions of the software, do not offer a choice to upgrade to the latest server software (like a recent version of PHP or MySQL). And some are just not helpful at all.

If you had a choice of picking a new web host, then here are the web hosts we use ourselves, and highly recommend, and they have everything readily available that DAP needs to run smoothly.

1) Dream Host

2) Host Monster

3) Blue Host

If your host is not shown here, it doesn’t mean that DAP won’t work on your host.

These just happen to be the ones we recommend if you have the option of picking a new web host.

Plus that is exactly why we offer the free 30-day trial – to make sure DAP can run on your current web site, and also help you decide if DAP will work for you.

So there’s no risk to you, regardless of who you are hosting with.

- Ravi

(1) When Activating LiveLinks

If you are seeing an error that looks like this when you try to activate LiveLinks…

Fatal error: Cannot redeclare dap_filter_posts() (previously declared in /home/birdtric/public_html/wp-content/plugins/DAP-WP-LiveLinks/DAP-WP-LiveLinks.php:11) in /home/birdtric/public_html/wp-content/plugins/DAP-WP-LiveLinks/DAP-WP-LiveLinks.php on line 11

Solution A) This could be because you have incorrectly named the DAP or Livelinks folders.

Remember, the dap folder must always be named dap (all lower case – and not, say, dap_v3.0). And the livelinks folder must be named DAP-WP-LiveLinks .

Solution B) It is possible that your web site does not meet the minimum requirements to run DAP .

If you open a ticket and give us your FTP info and your WordPress Admin login info, we can confirm this to you right away.

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If you are seeing an error that looks like this when you try to activate LiveLinks…

Oops! Could not create the config file (dap-config.php). Please make the ‘dap’ folder writable by doing CHMOD 755 (and if that doesn’t work, then try CHMOD 777.)
Installation failed. Please de-activate LiveLinks and re-activate it when you’ve fixed the issue. (106)

* CHMOD just the dap directory to 777.
* Then de-activate and activate the LiveLinks plugin.
* This time around, it should be able create the dap-config.php file within the dap directory. You should see the successful installation message.
* CHMOD just the dap directory back to 755.

If that doesn’t work, then open a ticket with the FTP info and WP admin info.

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(2) Session Error

If you see an error that looks like this…

Fatal error: Dap_Session::isLoggedIn() [dap-session.isloggedin]: The script tried to execute a method or access a property of an incomplete object. Please ensure that the class definition “Dap_Session” of the object you are trying to operate on was loaded _before_ unserialize() gets called or provide a __autoload() function to load the class definition in /home/site/public_html/dap/inc/classes/Dap_Session.class.php on line 41

This is basically caused by someone else’s 3rd-party WordPress plugin that is wiping out the “session” data (or user data stored in memory) which DAP relies on to store the user information. So there are two things you can try…

1. See if you have a plugin by name “WordPress Automattic Upgrade” in your wordpress plugins page.This has created many issues for so many other plugins too, including LiveLinks. Just de-activate this plugin, and your error should go away. Also, if you are using WordPress version 2.7.1, you don’t really need this plugin any more – the automatic upgrade feature has been built right into this version.
2. See if you have a plugin for doing “Captcha” – this is where to prevent bots from spamming your comments, your visitor is presented with some kind of an image to verify that they are human. Try with that de-activated.
3. If none of the above worked, or if you don’t have any of the above plugins active and you’re still seeing the error, then just try de-activating all other plugins temporarily (except LiveLinks, of course), and turn them back on one-by-one.

Refresh your blog page every time you activate a plugin. That way, you will know which is the plugin that is causing the error.

If that still doesn’t help, just open a support ticket and we’ll take care of it.

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(3) PDO Error

You see an error like this:

Fatal error: Class ‘PDO’ not found in /home1/knowlee3/public_html/buildamagneticnetwork/dap/inc/classes/Dap_Connection.class.php on line 19

If DAP had been working fine on your web site, and you all of a sudden see this error, then your host quietly pulled the rug from under your feet . This appears because they either deliberately or mistakenly disabled the “PDO” library, which is a must-have requirement for DAP to run.

So check with your host and ask them “if they disabled PHP/PDO for MySQL on your server recently”.

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(4) Memory Allocation

You see an error like this:

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 33554432 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 16 bytes) in /home/yoursite.com/public_html/dap/inc/classes/Dap_Connection.class.php on line 19

If this happens just once, then just ignore it.

But if it occurs more than once, then it could be because:

a) You recently made some changes to your DAP files or web site files, and overwrote/updated your dap-config.php file with the wrong database information. Even though it shows up like a memory issue, in reality it could be because DAP is unable to connect to the database because of incorrect information in the dap config file.

b) Your server legitimately has a low memory limit set by your host, and your host needs to increase the memory allocated to PHP/PDO. Open a ticket with your web host to do this.

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(5) Simple-Pie & Memory Allocation

You see an error like this:

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 37423432 bytes exhausted (tried to allocate 371520 bytes) in /…/public_html/~username/wp-includes/class-simplepie.php

Open the file wp-config.php (which is in your blog’s main folder)

Add this line at the top…

define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '64M');

That should take care of the error.

What are the minimum web-hosting requirements to run DAP?

See “Minimum web-hosting requirements”

What web hosts to you recommend?

See “DAP-Certified Web Hosts”

I’m getting an error during installation

See this post for more details about errors .

How can I avail of Free Installation?

See “Free Installation”

How do I setup Cron?

Click here for details