No matter what domain is searched WHMCS says not available

[Gary McHugh]

Hi,

We seem to have an issue with domain checker no matter what domain we or clients search for it says domain not available. Yes we tried switching from custom theme back to six. We have tried domains with nice long random strings and no matter what we search they all show as not available. Any ideas?

[brian!]

Hi Gary,

10 hours ago, Gary McHugh said:

We seem to have an issue with domain checker no matter what domain we or clients search for it says domain not available. Yes we tried switching from custom theme back to six. We have tried domains with nice long random strings and no matter what we search they all show as not available. Any ideas?

I would still be inclined to think that it's your custom template and/or your orderform template... because if I change it to "Six" and "Standard_cart", it works fine.

one thing that I did spot when changing to the above templates, was that standard_cart was using Google reCaptcha - whereas your custom templates didn't.... so i'm wondering if it's not getting a captcha response and treating it as a failed search... i'd suggest disabling captcha in setup -> general settings -> security and then seeing if your custom orderforms work.

 

[Gary McHugh]

OK changing to 6 and the order template you mentioned worked domain search is now functioning again,  however, now we are back to editing the theme to match our site.

I added the following to the custom css file and still the main nav is that horrible blue ,  so I guess the custom CSS override no longer works? It really is about time they added a simple theming section to WHMCS admin who wants a mismatch between site design and billing area?

.navbar-main {
    margin-bottom: 0;
    background-color: #000000;
    border: 0;
    min-height: 38px;
    font-family: Raleway,"Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;
    font-size: 15px;
}

[brian!]

On 14/07/2018 at 14:40, Gary McHugh said:

OK changing to 6 and the order template you mentioned worked domain search is now functioning again,  however, now we are back to editing the theme to match our site.

did disabling captcha not make your custom orderform work? were there further issues with it that would have needed updating ??

On 14/07/2018 at 14:40, Gary McHugh said:

I added the following to the custom css file and still the main nav is that horrible blue ,  so I guess the custom CSS override no longer works?

it should still work...

/* *****************************************************

    ** Custom Stylesheet **

    Any custom styling you want to apply should be
    defined here.

***************************************************** */

.navbar-main {
    background-color: rgba(58,58,58,1);
}

.navbar-main .navbar-nav > li > a:hover,
.navbar-main .navbar-nav > li > a:focus,
.navbar-main .navbar-nav > .active > a,
.navbar-main .navbar-nav > .active > a:hover,
.navbar-main .navbar-nav > .active > a:focus,
.navbar-main .navbar-nav > .open > a,
.navbar-main .navbar-nav > .open > a:hover,
.navbar-main .navbar-nav > .open > a:focus {
    color: #fff;
    background-color: #000;
}

.navbar-main .dropdown-menu {
	background-color: rgba(58,58,58,1);
}

.navbar-main .navbar-nav .dropdown-menu > li > a:hover,
.navbar-main .navbar-nav .dropdown-menu > li > a:focus,
.navbar-main .navbar-nav .dropdown-menu > .active > a,
.navbar-main .navbar-nav .dropdown-menu > .active > a:hover,
.navbar-main .navbar-nav .dropdown-menu > .active > a:focus,
.navbar-main .navbar-nav .dropdown-menu > .open > a,
.navbar-main .navbar-nav .dropdown-menu > .open > a:hover,
.navbar-main .navbar-nav .dropdown-menu > .open > a:focus {
    color: #fff;
    background-color: #000;
}

.dropdown-menu > li > a {
  color: #fff;
}

the above css wouldn't be a million miles away (colour-wise) from that used in the menu on your main website...

the above was tested on a v7.6b1 dev, but I doubt the navbar css has changed significantly with earlier versions.

On 14/07/2018 at 14:40, Gary McHugh said:

It really is about time they added a simple theming section to WHMCS admin who wants a mismatch between site design and billing area?

sadly, like a lot of things with WHMCS, they seemingly expect you to either fix issues like this yourself, or get a developer in.... it's a similar situation with the menus/sidebars etc, in that they could have easily coded a menu manager into WHMCS and that would have significantly removed the need to use hooks to modify a menu... which btw no user should have been expected to learn/do, nor should users need a third-party addon or developer to simply modify a navbar menu (except perhaps in the most extreme of circumstances).

I dread to think how much WHMCS support time, or even mine posting over the years for that matter lol, has been wasted on replying to threads about using hooks to modify the menus.

[Gary McHugh]

I added your CSS to the custom CSS file in the six theme folder and no change.

I have to admit of all the scripts I run for my business WHMCS has been one of the most problematic, I find their support a little condescending and dismissive. Seriously thinking of just switching to another solution. 

[brian!]

On 15/07/2018 at 14:47, Gary McHugh said:

I added your CSS to the custom CSS file in the six theme folder and no change.

that's not strictly true - your navbar is now black and I can see my css code in your custom.css file... plus some you've added yourself... it's hardly the default Six blue any more is it?

On 15/07/2018 at 14:47, Gary McHugh said:

I have to admit of all the scripts I run for my business WHMCS has been one of the most problematic, I find their support a little condescending and dismissive.

I couldn't comment - I don't use Support at all (and haven't for years)... except maybe for license issues, but that's not really Support in that sense.

On 15/07/2018 at 14:47, Gary McHugh said:

Seriously thinking of just switching to another solution. 

just wait until you run the auto-update and it overwrites those css changes - unless you remember to backup the custom.css file first.... if that occurs, then you'll be even more inclined to move on!

 

[Gary McHugh]

Thanks for the help Brian, looking ok now. I thought the whole point of custom css files is that they did not GET overwritten??

[brian!]

22 hours ago, Gary McHugh said:

I thought the whole point of custom css files is that they did not GET overwritten??

that's the obvious logic you would think, but in practice, unless you take a backup, it will get overwritten by a blank custom.css file on auto-update.... i've discussed this previously with WHMCS staff and confirmed that it's intentional behaviour.

let me try to explain their logic, and if i'm wrong on it, no doubt they can correct me... but as a rule, they don't expect users, who modify the "six" template, not to rename/copy it first.... and as you haven't renamed it, it will get auto-updated.

to me, and *many* users that i've helped over the years in those circumstances, it makes perfect sense that if you're using "six" and only intend to modify it using hooks and css (e.g no template changes), then there should be no need to rename it... that way, auto-updating updates the templates, while your css/hook changes remain intact... the fly in the ointment is that a blank custom.css is shipped with WHMCS and is therefore uploaded during an update... now you will get a warning during the update that custom.css (and any other edited templates) have been modified and that updating will overwrite those files... at which point, you need to take a backup.

the simple solution would be for WHMCS not to ship a blank custom.css file in the first place - they don't ship blank whois.json or countries.json files, so why ship a blank custom.css ? yeah I know it's existence might make css modification slightly simpler for new users - but if the file didn't exist, it's no hardship to create it.

I suppose you could write a hook to allow you to use another .css file (e.g custom2.css in the same directory as custom.css) instead for your custom coding - neither the hook or the new css file would get touched during an update... so you could just copy&paste your custom css into the new file instead of custom.css...

<?php

function client_custom_headoutput_hook($vars) {

	$head_return = '';
	$head_return = '<link href="'.$vars['WEB_ROOT'].'/templates/'.$vars['template'].'/css/custom2.css" rel="stylesheet">';
	return $head_return;
}
add_hook("ClientAreaHeadOutput",1,"client_custom_headoutput_hook");

other than that, just remember to keep a backup before updating.