Bug? "Registrant name is required" on transfer Nominet domain.

[Chris74]

Can anyone else reproduce this issue please....

As a client, go to transfer any UK domain using the Nominet module.  As expected you are not prompted for the registrant details - however, the order cannot continue because the form is being validated with the "additional domain fields" and states that the registrant name is required.

This has been happening for us since updating to 7.8 this week. It means currently no customers can transfer Nominet  domains to us.

(Using Six template and Premium Comparison order form)

 

Edited September 30, 2019 by Chris74

[brian!]

6 minutes ago, Chris74 said:

Can anyone else reproduce this issue please....

yes - but it's been there since v7.7 when WHMCS introduced ADF to transfers... and gave no way to distinguish if an ADF is to be shown during registration, transfer or both.... it's always both.

6 year feature request now marked as completed...

https://requests.whmcs.com/topic/additional-fields-in-domain-transfers

Quote

Following the introduction of GDPR laws, additional domain data can no longer be transferred between registrars automatically. As such we've added the additional domain fields to the transfer order flow to gather the information from clients and make it available to registrar modules.

 

9 minutes ago, Chris74 said:

As a client, go to transfer any UK domain using the Nominet module.  As expected you are not prompted for the registrant details - however, the order cannot continue because the form is being validated with the "additional domain fields" and states that the registrant name is required.

this has been raised previously during the beta - not specifically about .uk, but ADF with transfers in general - though that thread got deleted/removed/hidden... whatever.

13 minutes ago, Chris74 said:

This has been happening for us since updating to 7.8 this week. It means currently no customers can transfer Nominet  domains to us.

I suspect your only option is to remove the required status from the ADF, and then add the requirement back with coding when registering... though somewhere in the back of my mind is lurking whether configuredomains can easily distinguish between a transfer and registration without resorting to checking the session array.

I think WHMCS have previously stated they have no plans to allow the specification of ADF for reg/trans or both - certainly, can't see it happening on the short-term (e.g this year).

[Chris74]

Thanks Brian.  I'm a little confused.

You say that the ADF were added to the transfer process.

My problem is that the ADF's are not showing up during the transfer process. I doubt WHMCS would leave it in that state. It would mean that  transferring any domain that needs ADF would not be possible. If that was the case, I'm sure more people would be mentioning it here.

You say you can reproduce this. Are you sure - using the stock WHMCS ADF - this error happens? I'm a bit lost for words - if transferring nominet domains is no longer possible and WHMCS are aware of it - but have no plans to fix it, doesn't that mean they have broken the Nominet module and purposely removed the ability to transfer UK domains in their product? Surely that can't be true? This is a web hosting billing system after all.

I know that we are using overrides on this because the field labels need greater detail.

Do you think it's our overrides that are the problem?

Edited September 30, 2019 by Chris74

[Chris74]

Ok I've gone through this again. I'm sorry I didn't quite grasp the exact problem. I can see (as you clearly point out) that the only way to make this work is to set "Required" => true  on the registrant name field to "Required" => false  - but this is really going to cause us a problem of having to manually add info to these fields after the order has been placed. That field is required for a registration - but so many people do try to leave it out and they will now.

It's a real hatchet job. Another example of WHMCS doing the bare minimum to add in some new functionality because it might be needed after GDPR - but being wholly inconsiderate to the pre-existing functionality.

Disappointing 😞

 

[brian!]

Hi Chris,

1 hour ago, Chris74 said:

My problem is that the ADF's are not showing up during the transfer process. I doubt WHMCS would leave it in that state. It would mean that  transferring any domain that needs ADF would not be possible. If that was the case, I'm sure more people would be mentioning it here.

for the avoidance of doubt, and to ensure we're both singing from the same hymn sheet, it would be expected behaviour for these fields to be SHOWN during both registration and transfer - given an unaltered version of WHMCS using Six & Standard Cart.

if they aren't being shown during transfers, then that will likely be a ADF configuration or template issue... are you using a custom template and/or orderform template ?

1 hour ago, Chris74 said:

You say you can reproduce this. Are you sure - using the stock WHMCS ADF - this error happens?

what I can reproduce are these fields being shown during both reg and trans.

1 hour ago, Chris74 said:

I'm a bit lost for words - if transferring nominet domains is no longer possible and WHMCS are aware of it - but have no plans to fix it, doesn't that mean they have broken the Nominet module and purposely removed the ability to transfer UK domains in their product? Surely that can't be true? This is a web hosting billing system after all.

No, I think we got our wires crossed - .uk transfers work as per v7.7, they just have required fields now during both transfer and registrations... which should be visible to the user.

1 hour ago, Chris74 said:

I know that we are using overrides on this because the field labels need greater detail. 

Do you think it's our overrides that are the problem?

you mean using language strings in the additionalfields.php file and then overrides specified in a /lang/overview file - that shouldn't cause an issue like this unless it has caused a corruption in the additionalfields.php file... I would need to know what you've changed though to be sure.

45 minutes ago, Chris74 said:

Ok I've gone through this again. I'm sorry I didn't quite grasp the exact problem. I can see (as you clearly point out) that the only way to make this work is to set "Required" => true  on the registrant name field to "Required" => false  - but this is really going to cause us a problem of having to manually add info to these fields after the order has been placed. That field is required for a registration - but so many people do try to leave it out and they will now.

the little rascals - they'll have to get through me first! 🥊

let's assume that you're using standard_cart - though it shouldn't really matter what you use *if* the fields are showing, the code would just need tweaking a little... in configuredomains.tpl, the ADF are shown via...

{foreach from=$domain.fields key=domainfieldname item=domainfield}
	<div class="row">
	<div class="col-sm-4">{$domainfieldname}:</div>
	<div class="col-sm-8">{$domainfield}</div>
    </div>
{/foreach}

also assuming that field is now NOT required in the settings, to make it required for .uk domain registrations but NOT transfers, you could use...

{foreach from=$domain.fields key=domainfieldname item=domainfield}
	<div class="row">
	<div class="col-sm-4">{$domainfieldname}:</div>
	<div class="col-sm-8">{if $domainfieldname eq "Registrant Name" && $domain.domain|substr:-3 == ".uk" && $smarty.session.cart.domains.{$num}.type eq "register"}{$domainfield|replace:'>':' required >'} *{else}{$domainfield}{/if}</div>
    </div>
{/foreach}

that won't throw up the usual red infobox, but will make the field required and prevent them from continuing until it has been completed..

make a note of the above code because this is being posted in the v7.8 discussion forums, so there are no guarantees the thread will be available after they close it.

btw - if you had to do this for multiple non-UK TLDs, then I personally wouldn't use Smarty in the template (you could if you wanted to though), i'd use a ShoppingCartValidateDomainsConfig (and maybe ClientAreaPageCart) hooks and move the logic in there.

1 hour ago, Chris74 said:

It's a real hatchet job. Another example of WHMCS doing the bare minimum to add in some new functionality because it might be needed after GDPR - but being wholly inconsiderate to the pre-existing functionality.

as I once said in another thread, the only thing harder than getting WHMCS to do something, is getting WHMCS to go back and do it correctly after they've just created a quick fix.

of course, the above feature request is now closed, so the whole pointless request cycle starts again in that someone will need to create a new feature request to get them to separate registration and transfer fields... see you back here in 4-5 years.

https://requests.whmcs.com/topic/ability-to-separate-registration-additional-fields-from-transfer-additional-field

the tragedy of the FR site is that for the above request as an example, if that had been posted here as a question, I could have answered it similar to above - over there, the request is just going to gather dust for years.

[Chris74]

Wow Brian I really appreciate all the effort you put into your responses and the lengths you go to to help folks out. I definitely got my wires crossed with this because I just assumed that the Nominet module was designed not to show the  ADF's on transfers at all (yet they had left in the form validation) and that the issue was simply lazy programming, requiring us to set the fields to non mandatory.  Although obviously this just uncovers more lazy programming, it being that the additional fields are absolutely not needed for  the transfer of Nominet domains and they haven't bothered to stop them displaying for transfers in that module.

So my initial problem (assuming this is all controlled by the cart template) is that I may be using an old version of standard cart  - as the additional fields definitely do not show up on transfers.  I was under the impression that the auto update of WHMCS would also update the cart templates accordingly. Is this not the case? If it is - and they do get updated then I'm quite confused as to why the fields don't display at all on transfers. I guess my next stop would be to replace the cart template from a fresh WHMCS download.

[brian!]

9 minutes ago, Chris74 said:

Although obviously this just uncovers more lazy programming, it being that the additional fields are absolutely not needed for  the transfer of Nominet domains and they haven't bothered to stop them displaying for transfers in that module.

I meant to add that it puzzles me why the whois opt out is still there - it should be irrelevant now because of GDPR as they're effectively opted out by default...

11 minutes ago, Chris74 said:

So my initial problem (assuming this is all controlled by the cart template) is that I may be using an old version of standard cart  - as the additional fields definitely do not show up on transfers.  I was under the impression that the auto update of WHMCS would also update the cart templates accordingly. Is this not the case?

standard_cart should have been updated during an upgrade - but then it depends if you're using a custom renamed template as your default orderform... if so, then that won't have been touched by the updater... it might also be CSS in a custom.css hiding the fields, which could explain why they're still required, but you can't see them.

another option would be to go old school... so begin the transfer ordering process, but when you get to the configure domains stage, add &carttpl=modern to the URL and it will switch to using Modern... and that should tell you if it's a template issue, or a configuration issue

another option might be in configuredomains.tpl to add {debug} and see if the fields array exists - pre v7.7, the array would have only existed for registrations, post v7.7, they should exist for both.

[Chris74]

Interesting. I've not changed any of the templates - I'm not using a custom template and the domain config boxes don't appear at all for transfers, no matter which order form template I use. They do still appear for new registrations though.

I'll try your template changes for the registrant name and see how it goes. Thanks again for your help Brian.

Edited October 1, 2019 by Chris74

[brian!]

if all else fails, rename additionalfields.php to additionalfields.php9 - that should make WHMCS ignore it and will show whether there is an issue with the additionalfields.php file.

btw - is this only affecting .uk domains, or are there other TLDs where these fields aren't showing ??

[Chris74]

This is getting more bizarre.

So I'm using six template with only some very minor changes, css colours etc. cart templates are unchanged.

Whether I use the standard ADF file or my own, the fields don't show on transfers.

But even stranger, now those fields don't appear in the domain details inside WHMCS for new domains that have failed registration. If I look at existing UK domains I can see and edit the fields in the domain record - but until we updated to this version, if a domain failed because the wrong registrant type was selected, we could change it.

This is obviously worse now that the registrant name field is not mandatory, a customer has today left it out and the registration has failed - but we are unable to edit it because the fields no longer show in the admin area.

Edit.. After some testing, I can't reproduce this latest issue using either the standard Six template or my own template. I'm not sure under what circumstances this happened for the client. So far it has only happened once.

Edited October 3, 2019 by Chris74

[brian!]

Chris,

can you PM me this additionalfields.php file and i'll take a quick look to see if there are any issues with it.

[Chris74]

I removed it from the equation and tested using the default one, so I'm getting the same results with both.

[brian!]

1 minute ago, Chris74 said:

I removed it from the equation and tested using the default one, so I'm getting the same results with both.

I assume that you've never edited dist.additionalfields.php ?

[Chris74]

Well I didn't think so - and I would have thought it would get overwritten anyway. I've replaced it with the stock version from the WHMCS download  - and bingo! The fields now appear for transfers. I'm guessing early on I must have edited that file and it isn't getting overwritten, or flagged up as changed during the upgrade. What a relief. Hopefully that will be the end of it now. Thanks for your persistence Brian and thanks again for your help!

[Chris74]

Here's something strange...

If I duplicate dist.additionalfields.php to a brand new additionalfields.php   - the fields don't show up on transfer.  If I remove the identical additionalfields.php, leaving behind just dist.additionalfields.php - the field names appear.

[brian!]

20 minutes ago, Chris74 said:

If I duplicate dist.additionalfields.php to a brand new additionalfields.php   - the fields don't show up on transfer.  If I remove the identical additionalfields.php, leaving behind just dist.additionalfields.php - the field names appear.

just to add to the weirdness, if I copy&paste the content to dist into additionalfields.php, the fields show up on both .uk registrations and transfers as per normal. 👻