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Federal Express Real Time Quotes V2.0 Just Uploaded


sfatula

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I'm getting only "Home Delivery" rates for Fedex... Here is the debug output:

 

Data sent to Fedex for Rating: 0,"25"10,"276642324"498,"3045857"8,"WA"9,"98070"117,"US"17,"91355"50,"US"75,"LBS"1116,"I"1401,"29.5"1529,"1"1415,"273.50"68,"USD"440,"Y"1273,"01"1333,"1"99,""

Data returned from Fedex for Rating: 0,"125"1133,"2"1273-1,"01"1274-1,"90"1402-1,"30.0"1416-1,"10.99"1417-1,"2.03"1418-1,"0.00"1419-1,"13.02"3058-1,"3"1273-2,"01"1274-2,"92"1402-2,"30.0"1416-2,"10.99"1417-2,"2.29"1418-2,"0.00"1419-2,"13.28"3058-2,"3"99,""

 

 

We send to Fedex ALL the time with next day between 98070 (Origin) and 91355 (Destination). Why would it only return quotes for 'Home Delivery'?

 

Thank you!

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I'd also like to add that the reason you may get different rate quotes from FedEx is because a representative on the phone can view real time charges. The server is more of a baseline.

 

For instance, a company shipping FedEx recieved a supplemental invoice every 90 days with any additional charges.

 

The reason for this is pretty complex. Let's say there is a zip code error, FedEx charges $10 for address corrections. There are just lots of nickle and dime fee's that a computer can't predict because they rely on the human element.

 

Keep in mind as well, FedEx processes 5.5 million packages in a 4 hour window and this relies heavily on computers. The Super Hub located in Memphis is amazing, it's very hard to explain, it's something you have to see.

 

So if things seem complicated or you don't understand why certain things are required, just remember that 5.5 million packages are sorted and routed by computers controlling where the packges are sorted too off conveyor belts. This is why FedEx blows UPS out of the water when it comes to delivering product on time and keeping packages from being lost or shipped to the wrong location.

 

UPS relies heavily on the human factor, which increases errors. Not to mention FedEx Ground IS cheaper than UPS. This is because FedEx has only truely been in the Ground market a couples years and they only have 16% of the ground business. UPS dominants the ground market so they have no reason to cut their own throats with low rates. Not to mention a UPS driver who's been with the company 25 years knocks down about $70k and their pilots are the highest paid in the world. Roughly around $300k a year.

 

When it comes to support from FedEx you have people who specialize in certain areas, but FedEx covers a lot. So a lot of FedEx IT employee's have to know a little about everything. Communication and collaboration at FedEx is very high. There is no one person at FedEx, or any company, that has all the answers. Keep in mind that when you're dealing with a programmer, he or she might not know about rates or service commitments, but just programming and a little about shipping. Or some know a lot. 200,000 employee's, it can be expected.

 

So Yes, FedEx is cheaper. Ground transit time is about 30% faster than UPS. FedEx dominates internationally. Importing into the country is also very cheap through FedEx. If anybody lives in Hawaii, it's VERY VERY cheap to ship to the US from Hawaii. That's because everything ships to hawaii and those planes are coming back empty. Might as well give people a HUGE discount to ship back into the states. So if your web business takes off, you can go live in paradise and ship really cheap from Hawaii.

 

I know this is a little off topic, but I saw a few questions I thought this might help to answer. It might also give people some business ideas.

 

Thanks,

 

Scott

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I just replaced our old store with a new MS2 version and am trying to get things working again. I tried adding the newest version of Fedex Real Time contribution, but cannot get it to successfully poll Fedex. Keep getting the "curl cannot connect with Fedex server..." error. Checked the config of the server with the ISP/host and phpInfo and curl and openSSL are both definetly installed and, according to the hiost tech person, properly configured (or so they say).

 

I've tried filling in the path to curl (/usr/bin/curl) and that doesn't work either. In the debug I get the info sent to the Fedex server, but no data comes back.

 

Tech support at our host says all is well with curl etc. and they gave me the correct path to curl.

 

Anybody have any ideas on how we can test this or fix it? We really need to use Fedex since it is our main shipper. The UPS and USPS modules are working fine. I even tried turning them off to see if that made a difference and itr doesn't.

 

Help!!

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  • 1 month later...

I just figured out my FedEx shipping module wasn't working. Checked the version update list and saw that FedEx changed their API. Deeply appreciate the quick update to rectify this. Is there a way to be put on FedEx developer email system so that whenever they decide to change their API I get an email about it? This is real important.

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Neilwhit, unfortunately, the curl issue has nothing to do with the module, it DOES require your server company to fix the issue, whatever it is. No way to guess, oucldn't even begin to. If they insist it "works", give them the code and tell them to tell you why it does not. You can simplify it to only the section of code that does the curl request, and hardcode the data sent. With 10 lines of code, they can debug and figure out what setting they have that is preventing this from working for you. I've seen more than 20 reasons thus far for it not working, and, can't tell you what they are as did not have access to the actual hosting servers.

 

Dimports - unfortunately, being on the mailing list doesn't help. I AM on the mailing list, and in this instance, Fedex changed the code to match the documentation, so, they considered this as a bug fix and not a change to the API. So, no communication was sent out. I did suggest to them that it was a de facto API change and it should have been communicated.

Steve

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  • 4 weeks later...

Here is an interesting one.

 

I am UK based, so I have deleted out all the domestic rates as Fedex will only ship internationally from here.

 

I was using 2.02- the problem being that it wouldn't quote me for anywhere but the USA as a destination. I looked up my rates on the website and they were different to the module, however I know this has been flagged.

 

I loaded up 2.04 - the problem is now that all quotes are nil! It'll recognise some places in Europe but offers no price. Very odd.

 

Also it would be nice to have the option to choose which countries you wish to offer Fedex shipping to, so I can simply blank out the UK and give them the std "shipping not available to this country" mesg instead of some weird Fedex error message.

 

Anyhow is my best bet to delete the Fedex module and re-install it? What could be causing the zero rates?

 

Cheers

Bill

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  • 2 weeks later...

I am getting error messages back during checkout from the fedex shipping module. I have the correct company information, account #, shipping zip and I am not sure where to start to debug this problem.

 

Here are my settings:

Federal Express

 

You will need to have registered an account with FEDEX to use this module. Please see the README.TXT file for other requirements.

 

Enable Fedex Shipping

True

 

Your Fedex Account Number

xxxxxxxxxxx

 

Your Fedex Meter ID

NONE

 

cURL Path

NONE

 

Debug Mode

True

 

Weight Units

LBS

 

Which server to use

test

 

First line of street address

11139 Air Park Rd Suite 2

 

Second line of street address

NONE

 

City name

Ashland

 

State or Province name

VA

 

Postal code

23005

 

Phone number

804-752-6025

 

Drop off type

5

 

Display Transit Times

True

 

Fedex surcharge?

0

 

Show List Rates?

False

 

Insurance?

NONE

 

Residential surcharge?

0

 

Enable Envelope Rates?

False

 

Sort rates:

High to Low

 

Timeout in Seconds

NONE

 

Tax Class

--none--

 

Sort Order

0

 

 

Here is my error message:

Federal Express

No meter number was obtained, check configuration. Error 9927 : Unable to validate account on FSS

 

Here is the website:

https://host134.ipowerweb.com/~bmotorsp/catalog

 

I set NONE in the meterid field thinking I would have a new value returned based on successful communication to the Fedex server but now I am not sure.

 

Any help would be appreciated

Edited by w2vy
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You have:

 

Debug Mode

True

 

And

 

Which server to use

test

 

 

The Test server will not give you a meter.

 

Try running it in production, not harm it is just quoting rates.

 

tom

Thomas A. Moulton, W2VY

osCommerce core developer osc2.1 to osc 2.3.x

Support the developers!

http://www.oscommerce.com/about/team

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Thanks Tom,

 

I appreciate the help. I changed the Debug Mode to False and changed Which server to use to production and now receive the following error:

 

No meter number was obtained, check configuration. Error 9910 : Customer Profile Server database processing error.

 

Unfortunately I am stuck on this problem and it is one of the last issues to be resolved before I release this site for general sales. I will start to contact Fedex at this point but I am not sure how to continue debugging this problem becuase everything happens in the background.

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I managed to solve the problem. For some reason, the software was not able to get the meterid properly. I called and emailed Fedex a few times until I got someone to give me the meterid number for my account. Geeze their support is a joke. Anyway, after entering the meterid manually, it looks like everything is ready to go.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi, Im having a problem with retrieving the meter id number as well.

 

I had my client call up Fed Ex for this but she got nowhere. The people she was talking to had no idea what she was talking about. They emailed her an API implementation guide... but thats not what we need!

 

Can someone who has been through this tell me what number you called and what department you spoke with? Is it as simple as giving the account number and asking for a corresponding meter id number?

 

Just wanna get this thing resolved... :blink:

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Im getting the "no meter id number" error as well.

 

My client called FedEx and had no luck. They didnt know what she was talking about.

 

Can someone who has gone through this tell me what number they called, who they talked to and how they got the meter ID number? (is it as simple as giving them the account number and having them assign one?)

 

Thanks. Cant wait to get this resolved.

 

:blink:

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darn... i double posted. sorry about that.

 

anyway, heres an update. i emailed Fed Ex support for the Meter Number and they replied with the following:

 

"That shipping module needs to be able to generate a meter number for

you. If it will not you need to contact the department that supports

that product for assistance."

 

so my question is, is this tech wrong? if he's correct, why were some people able to obtain the meter number by calling Fed Ex? and where does that leave me?

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  • 2 weeks later...
darn... i double posted.  sorry about that.

 

anyway, heres an update.  i emailed Fed Ex support for the Meter Number and they replied with the following:

 

"That shipping module needs to be able to generate a meter number for

you.  If it will not you need to contact the department that supports

that product for assistance."

 

so my question is, is this tech wrong?  if he's correct, why were some people able to obtain the meter number by calling Fed Ex?  and where does that leave me?

FYI - I just spent a few hours getting this working - The problem was resolved when I pulled out an invoice from fedex and entered the information EXACTLY as it appears on my bill. The hard part was it wanted WA and not Washington for the state. Don't know how many times I looked at it.

 

If that does not work - call fedex internet support at 800257-0101 and ask them to run a trial shippment - that also fixed an error on their side.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Does anyone know how I could apply the fedex module to a shipping zone? There doesn't seem to be any option for this.

 

The UPS and USPS mods have this option installed as

 

Shipping Zone

If a zone is selected, only enable this shipping method for that zone.

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Hi-

 

I had some serious problems with my server and my host had to rebuild from backup. Now, I cant get the FedEx module to work correctly. Looking at my phpinfo() file everything in the readme is fine (curl and openssl installed) so its not that easy. Ive tried re-installing the module, releasing the meter#, amongst other techniques, both on the production and testing server...

 

With the established meter# i get the error:

No data returned from Fedex, perhaps the Fedex site is down

 

without the meter# i get:

No response to CURL from Fedex server, check CURL availability, or maybe timeout was set too low, or maybe the Fedex site is down

 

Looking at the code for the latest version, i see the server is 'gateway.fedex.com/GatewayDC'. Is this correct? Are their alternatives??

 

Right now I have the FedEx Zone Rate contrib running until I can get this malaise.

 

Also, according to my log files, there doesent seem to be any errors generated in PHP.

 

Any advice would be very helpful!

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Well blame it on the host because that was the deal...

 

CURL support  enabled
CURL Information  libcurl/7.10.5 OpenSSL/0.9.7a zlib/1.1.4

 

This is the way the phpinfo() should of looked. Curl was enabled, so was OpenSSL but they had to be complied together...

 

Once my host did that, no problems...

 

If anything, copy and paste the cURL prerequisates from the README in an email to the host so they know exactly what you need...

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm running into the following problem:

 

When the user checks out and has to choose which FedEx method to use, at the top of the FedEx section it seems to split the package. For one 75 lbs package, it displays as though it's shipping two 41.25 lbs packages (I'm not sure why it seems to be adding on weight). Here's screen capture to illustrate(this is for a 75 lbs package):

 

FedexProblem.JPG

 

Anyone have any ideas?

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I'm having the exact opposite problem as clewist. I'm trying to checkout with three items that total 75.5 lbs, but instead of breaking up the shipment into smaller packages, it quotes me as (1x75.5), which is too heavy for a home delivery, and as a result, It won't even give a quote or allow my customers to proceed past that point of the checkout process.

 

Is there a way to either tell it to split the package if too heavy, or quote ALL shipments as business addresses?

 

Thanks for the help!!

Edited by NextLevelMotoring
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Tonight my customers are only getting the option for FedEx Express Saver, the ground/home option is not showing.

 

I've had a more than normal number of Express Saver shipments since Saturday, but still some FedEx Home and Ground.

 

Is anyone else seeing this?

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