Posts tagged Magento
Notes on Magento benchmarking..
0We all know that Magento is a lot more demanding than most e-commerce solutions. Providing a Magento specific hosting environment at a reasonable price is the key to our business.
Like other hosts we use a couple of benchmarking sites to help show our hosting prowess. The two key sites are:
http://www.magespeedtest.com/
http://magebenchmark.sonassi.com/
Both are useful for different reasons.
Mage speed test.
Created by the rather talented Ashley Schroder mage speed test is essentially a managed Seige benchmark interface. It will take the standard magento sitemap as the input and run tests against random pages within the site. One of the most useful features is the ability for anyone to test their own setup. It is very useful for testing in real time, changes to server configs.
The idea was that end users would get a representative idea of what their host could offer. Dx3webs was the second host to join this site and we added a couple of our packages. Shortly after we were noticing that other hosting companies were coming in with load times that could only be achieved with reverse proxy servers. Eventually we decided to add a Varnish enabled option to the list and currently we are neck and neck with two other hosts offering their own cached versions. We are currently using Cache Extension powered by Varnish which is a free extension. There is also PageCache powered by Varnish which was previously a paid for extension but has recently gone free. We will be testing this in the near future.
We know form speaking to Ashley that he is keen to ensure that his tests are an accurate reflection of real world tests and that each store needs to be functional to the end user. With the use of these Varnish extensions you can have insanely fast stores AND dynamic content.
One final comment on Mage speed test. Each of the hosts that post on there are highly reputable and enjoy a strong reputation and are active participants in the Magento community. Any of the packages listed on there will be plenty fast to run most magento stores and I don’t believe most shoppers would spot the difference between a store delivering 15 transactions per second and 30 transactions per second. At Dx3webs we aim to offer the best possible home for your magento store. This means not only being able to provide a fast hosting environment but also best possible up time, excellent support and buckets of advice and guidance.
The key thing to recognise is that Magento is demanding, you will need a host who cares about performance and you will have to pay a slight premium for the privilege.
Oh and did you notice that the fastest result in the table is also the cheapest and the only one based in the UK.
Magento Benchmark
The original Magento benchmark site has been around for a long time now and is run by Manchester magento developers Sonassi. Whilst it is not as handy as Mage speed test and aimed exclusively at hosts it goes a long way to give a much better picture of actual server performance that simple Seige tests. ”Based on levels of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20 and 30 concurrent connections, there will be two tests. Both tests are custom written and have been designed to reflect real-world load not artificial testing such as siege/ab.” Full details of the test can be read here.
As you can see from the table, Dx3webs offers excellent value for money on our entry level package.. again, we not only offer the cheapest package but also a generous disk allocation, unlimited traffic and no limits on the domains you can run from your store for less than £15 per month. Top this off with a free two week trial…
Magetno fix : Cant add products to admin create order
0There appears to be a bug in magento 1.5x where by manually creating an order and trying to add a product does not work. It appears to be an issue with ext-tree.js which is called unnecessarily on this page.
To fix edit app/design/adminhtml/default/default/layout/sales.xml
and add
<action method="removeItem"><type>js</type><name>extjs/ext-tree.js</name></action>
like so:
<adminhtml_sales_order_create_index> <reference name="left"> <action method="setIsCollapsed"><value>true</value></action> </reference> <reference name="head"> <action method="removeItem"><type>js</type><name>extjs/ext-tree.js</name></action> <action method="addJs"><file>mage/adminhtml/sales.js</file></action>
Magento fix : Invalid method Mage_Wishlist_Model_Item::canConfigure(Array
0This will affect older themes if you are upgrading Magento core,
There is a simple fix.
1. Copy wishlish.xml in base/default/layout to your_template/layout
2. Copy the whole wishlist folder in base/default/template to your_template/template
3. Refresh Cache
Create a multi-store setup in Magento
0Provided you do not need an ssl cert for each domain it is relatively straight forward to create a multi-store setup. If you host with Dx3webs we will do this for you .. simply raise a ticket.
1) configure magento.
In system > manage stores
Add a new website, store and store view for your new site. Remember the code for the website.
2) Create a domain alias for you new domain pointing to your existing domain.
3) Add a little logic to index.php
umask(0);
if ($_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] == "newdomain.com" || $_SERVER['HTTP_HOST'] == "www.newdomain.com"){
$_SERVER["MAGE_RUN_CODE"] = "website_code";
$_SERVER["MAGE_RUN_TYPE"] = "website";
}
/* Store or website code */
$mageRunCode = isset($_SERVER['MAGE_RUN_CODE']) ? $_SERVER['MAGE_RUN_CODE'] : '';
/* Run store or run website */
$mageRunType = isset($_SERVER['MAGE_RUN_TYPE']) ? $_SERVER['MAGE_RUN_TYPE'] : 'store';
Mage::run($mageRunCode, $mageRunType);
Magento fix: Fatal error: Method Varien_Object::__tostring() cannot take arguments in /magento/lib/Varien/Object.php
2If you are transferring older version of Magento to new servers or if you have upgraded your version of php to 5.3.3+ you will find some fatal errors while working with 1.3x versions of Magneto. There are 3 lines you will need to change in core code:
1) /lib/Varien/Object.php (Line 484)
replace __toString
with __invoke
2) /app/code/core/Mage/Core/Controller/Request/Http.php (Line 274)
replace split
with explode
3) app/code/core/Mage/Admin/Model/User.php (Line 374)
replace split
with explode
Magento fix : Local file doesn’t exist
0If you have upgraded your magento or coppied it across from dev to live or live to dev you may find that Magento connect is throwing “Local file doesn’t exist:” error. This is generated from lib/Mage/Connect/Ftp.php. The error occurs if you have oped to use the new ftp connection method for magento connect. This is a long sought after method of using connect but this is the down side. Rather than store your ftp date in the database the Magento team have opted to store this info in a file… downloader/connect.cfg to be precise.
This is a text file which you will see contains the info you used when setting up Connect. Make the necessary changes to this to reflect the new server location.
Magento tip: after upgrade prices on product page simple product are gone……
2If you are upgrading Magento or even using a pre 1.4.2 theme you may well find that your prices are not showing on your product page.
Simple fix
Open /app/design/frontend/base/your_theme/template/product/
Find the line:
<?php echo $this->getChildHtml(\'product_type_data\') ?>
replace with :
<?php echo $this->getPriceHtml($_product, true) ?>
Add attribute to Grid or List view
0This came up twice in one day so it is worth adding here. Often the information that Magento provides in the grid view is not enough for a specific product type. In this case we add two attributes to the grid.
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Magento Tip: Add simple product url to grouped product items
0If you are offering grouped products it is often useful to give more details on the individual ‘simple’ items page.
All you need is to add the correct url link to the name of the product…
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