Email to renew ad for 30 days is sent the same day ad is placed?

[macsamurai]

2 days ago I placed an ad on my own site and noticed something peculiar. It's a 15-day ad. But 8 hours after I posted the ad, I received a renewal email:

Your ad on CubeOwner.com | Home of the Mac Cube FAQ! is going to expire in 15 days.

If you have not sold your product and wish to renew your ad for an additional 30 days, please click on the link below:

http://www.cubeowner.com/classifieds...ock=1109392115

If you have sold your item, please let us know by clicking on this link:

http://www.cubeowner.com/classifieds...ct.php?sold=71

I am now receiving that same renewal email every day (today it says 14 days till expire, etc).

Questions:

1 ) How can I change WHEN it is sent so it is sent when it's 1 or 2 days before the original ad expires? It seems very silly to ask someone to renew there ad the same day they listed it.

2 ) I don't want 30-day renewals... ever. When the ad is placed their options aren't longer than 15 days. How can I change the renewal period to 3 days or 5 days or 7 days?

3 ) Is there any way to require payment for the renewal? As it is, the same person could pay for a single ad and just keep renewing and changing the ad description.

Thanks for any tips and assistance.

[Chuck S]

This doesnt seem right is this the latest classifieds?

I show this in sendnotice.php

$mday = $mday + 3;
$expire = mktime($hour,$min,$sec,$mon,$mday,$year);

print "checking for ads while will expire in 3 days...<br><br>";

$query = "SELECT id,user,userid,title,enddate FROM {$Globals['pp_db_prefix']}products WHERE enddate < $expire AND status=0 AND isauction=0";
$result = ppmysql_query($query,$link);

You see it is coded to send out notices if an ad expires within 3 days

[macsamurai]

It's version 2.1 - which is the latest version I am aware of.

I see the section you refer to in sendnotice.php - but the fact remains that what I posted above is exactly what is happening. It isn't supposed to. But it is. My reason for posting is to find out why it is happening, stop it from happening and to address the other questions I have about it so that when it is working the way it is supposed to, it can be modified slightly so that it makes more sense in the context of my site, for my users.

You seem to do this dance a lot. Someone posts a problem they are having. You reply with how it must be their fault. Perhaps you could address the why/how to fix/other questions now that you've gotten that out of your system?

[macsamurai]

And here it is again

CubeOwner, your ad on CubeOwner.com | Home of the Mac Cube FAQ! is going to expire in 29 days.

If you have not sold your product and wish to renew your ad for an additional 30 days, please click on the link below:

http://www.cubeowner.com/classifieds...ock=1110814809

If you have sold your item, please let us know by clicking on this link:

http://www.cubeowner.com/classifieds...ct.php?sold=71

[macsamurai]

And again

CubeOwner, your ad on CubeOwner.com | Home of the Mac Cube FAQ! is going to expire in 28 days.

If you have not sold your product and wish to renew your ad for an additional 30 days, please click on the link below:

http://www.cubeowner.com/classifieds...ock=1110814809

If you have sold your item, please let us know by clicking on this link:

http://www.cubeowner.com/classifieds...ct.php?sold=71

[Chuck S]

All I have posted is asking you are you using the latest version as looking at the sendnotice.php file I see nothing out of place

What comes back if you run this query in phpmyadmin

SELECT lastupdate FROM stats WHERE id=1

[Chuck S]

Try this

Find this in sendnotice.php

// Check for ads which are going to expire in next 3 days, send one notice per day for products not sold
$mday = $mday + 3;
$expire = mktime($hour,$min,$sec,$mon,$mday,$year);

print "checking for ads while will expire in 3 days...<br><br>";

$query = "SELECT id,user,userid,title,enddate FROM {$Globals['pp_db_prefix']}products WHERE enddate < $expire AND status=0 AND isauction=0";
$result = ppmysql_query($query,$link);

change to this

// Check for ads which are going to expire in next 3 days, send one notice per day for products not sold
$mday = $mday - 3;
$expire = mktime($hour,$min,$sec,$mon,$mday,$year);

print "checking for ads while will expire in 3 days...<br><br>";

$query = "SELECT id,user,userid,title,enddate FROM {$Globals['pp_db_prefix']}products WHERE enddate > $expire AND status=0 AND isauction=0";
$result = ppmysql_query($query,$link);

[macsamurai]

Originally Posted by omegatron

All I have posted is asking you are you using the latest version as looking at the sendnotice.php file I see nothing out of place

What comes back if you run this query in phpmyadmin

SELECT lastupdate FROM stats WHERE id=1

I get this:

SQL-query:

SELECT lastupdate
FROM stats
WHERE id =1
LIMIT 0 , 30

MySQL said:
#1146 - Table 'laurie_classifieds.stats' doesn't exist

[macsamurai]

Just edited sendnotice.php - thank you. I'll let you know tomorrow if it worked!

[macsamurai]

I am happy to report that I did NOT receive a renewal notice today. Thank you for assisting me.

Now that it seems to be working correctly, would it be possible to address my other 2 questions from my first post?

2 ) I don't want 30-day renewals... ever. When the ad is placed their options aren't longer than 15 days. How can I change the renewal period to 3 days or 5 days or 7 days?

3 ) Is there any way to require payment for the renewal? As it is, the same person could pay for a single ad and just keep renewing and changing the ad description.

Expanding on those questions, since I don't want someone to be able to continuously renew their ad without paying again, can I limit how many times they get to renew the same ad?

Thanks in advance. If these follow-up questions would be better placed in a different part of the forums, please let me know and I will re-post in a more appropriate place.

[Chuck S]

The simple answer would be that the user has already paid you for that ad. If the user has not sold it he can renew the ad that is already paid for.

You can not do as you choose without altering the way the product is coded to operate by default

[macsamurai]

The user has paid for an ad to run for a specific period of time. Otherwise why bother offering time periods to begin with? All ads could just be open-ended until manually closed by the person who placed the ad if your logic held true. Just like with virtually any other classified ad - in a newspaper for example, classified ads are purchased for a given week or date range and the pricing is based on how long the ad runs.

Thanks for answering my question. My mistake for not realizing that the developers of the software I paid for decided what I should and shouldn't charge for instead of giving me the option. I will look for someone versed in modding these kinds of apps to assist me in making it work in a way I need it to. Perhaps this logical feature will be considered in future versions.

[Chuck S]

Easy way to mod it would be to just remove the link in sendnotice.php

$letter = "$tousername, your ad on {$Globals['webname']} is going to expire in $x days.\n\n";
$letter .= "If you have not sold your product and wish to renew your ad for an additional 30 days,";
$letter .= " please click on the link below:\n\n";
$letter .= "{$Globals['maindir']}/renew.php?product=$id&unlock=$enddate\n\n";
$letter .= "If you have sold your item, please let us know by clicking on this link:\n\n";
$letter .= "{$Globals['maindir']}/editproduct.php?sold=$id\n\n";
$letter .= "Thank you!";

edit the letter variable to suit your needs

[macsamurai]

Thank you. That's a good work-around. I actually did that right after I posted and before I saw your reply. I have removed these lines:

$letter .= "If you have not sold your product and wish to renew your ad for an additional 30 days,";
$letter .= " please click on the link below:\n\n";
$letter .= "{$Globals['maindir']}/renew.php?product=$id&unlock=$enddate\n\n";

I was going to replace it with a line that says if their item didn't sell, they can place a new ad. But I don't want to burden them with having to re-do the entire listing, re-upload their photos, etc. So I'm still going to look for someone who can modify it so that there is an option to renew - just not without paying to extend their listing for x number of days.

[criscokid]

Originally Posted by macsamurai

Is there any way to require payment for the renewal? As it is, the same person could pay for a single ad and just keep renewing and changing the ad description.

I'm running Classifieds 2.41 - Is there any likelyhood that 'payment for renewal' will be coded in to any future versions? The same would ideally apply to ads that are free but cost extra to bold highlight and italicise.

[Chuck S]

Please post any suggestions in the suggestions forum as thats the only way we would know what user's want.