FAQ¶

Q: When I go to the settings page, I get a white page.¶

A: The “WordPress White Screen of Death” can have many reasons. The best option is to check your server’s error log. If you find an error message like “Fatal error: Allowed memory size of [xyz] bytes exhausted …” it is very likely that your server’s PHP memory limit is very low, propably 32 or 64 MB. The default is 128 MB. To increase the memory limit to 128 MB, put this line of code in your wp-config.php file.

define('WP_MEMORY_LIMIT', '128M');

If you do not know what your memory limit is, check your webhoster’s PHP info page or create one for yourself and search for “memory_limit”. If this does not fix it, please contact the support.

Q: Can I use my collections from ASA 1?¶

A: Yes, see Import ASA 1 collections.

Q: Does ASA 2 work without AWS access key?¶

A: No, you need your own AWS key for ASA 2. It does not provide an internal key to work with all users as this would be against Amazon terms.

Q: Does ASA 2 work without using my AWS root user?¶

A: Yes. Please check out this AWS documentation page about Managing your Existing AWS Security Credentials for the Product Advertising API.

Q: Does ASA 2 store my AWS secret key encrypted?¶

A: Yes.

Q: Why do I get an empty page for {{ CustomerReviewsURL }}?¶

A: Keep in mind that the URL for the customers review page is valid for 24 hours. You can see the expiration time in the url, e.g. exp=2015-08-18T20:35:19Z. If your cache is set to more than 24 hours, you get the white page because the customers reviews URL is no longer valid.

Q: Why do I get an error on update (“Download failed. Unauthorized”)¶

A: If you get an error on update like in the screenshot or you have clicked the link “update now” in the plugins list and nothing happens, it is very likely that your license is not valid anymore. Please check your license on page “ASA 2 Pro / License”. For more details please see chapter License issues.

Q: Afer I changed my default Associate ID on the setup page, still the old one is used in shop page URLs¶

A: You have to reset all caches, the ASA 2 caches as well as those of third party plugins. Additionally you have to refresh your Repo items as the product data is cached there too for a configurable amount of time.

Q: After I activated ASA 2, I do not see it in the admin menu. In the WP debug.log I get the error “General error: parse_ini_file() has been disabled for security reasons”.¶

A: The error message means that your webhoster or server admin has disabled the native PHP function “parse_ini_file”. Usually they do this in an attempt to tighten security, perhaps after a flaw has been found in an old or poorly written PHP application or WP plugin. This is a common problem with inexperienced web-hosts. This is a note from php.net:

“This function has nothing to do with the php.ini file. It is already processed by the time you run your script. This function can be used to read in your own application’s configuration files.”

ASA 2 requires a fully functional PHP environment to work properly. PHP with arbitrary functions disabled is not fully functional. You should ask your hosting company to consider removing the block on function “parse_ini_file” and to disable safe_mode which could cause this trouble, or at least provide an exception for ASA 2. ASA 2 does not use “parse_ini_file” in an insecure manner. Disabling that function does not increase security.

If your hosting company insists on continuing to block functions or use PHP safe_mode, you should consider switching to a new host that provides a complete PHP environment.

Q: The “Buy Button” shows nothing when hovering over the button. Will it pass on the Affiliate ID information?¶

A: The buy button is not a link, like the view button, but an HTML form. This is why you can not see the destination link when you hover the mouse over it. The form contains both the Associate ID and your Amazon Access Key ID as shown by this example provided by Amazon.

Q: Will your plugin require manual shortcodes insertions?¶

A: You can use the product picker via the ASA 2 editor button which will generate the shortcodes for you. Please see a demo video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi_KAqCqgks

Q: Will your plugin work with any WooCommerce theme?¶

A: While we do not know “any” WooCommerce theme, ASA 2’s product templates are designed to work with any theme. So there is no reason why it should not work. If there might be an issue, we will update the managed templates.

Q: Will it be compatible with Ebay Patner program as well?¶

A: No. ASA 2 is specialized for the Amazon affiliate program. But there might come a feature to add external, non-Amazon products in the ASA 2 Repo (http://docs.getasa2.com/repo.html)

Q: Will product reviews and ratings be extracted from Amazon?¶

A: Ratings yes, reviews no. The texts, customers write are about produicts, are not delivered by the API, but you can place a link to the reviews page, see {{ CustomerReviewsURL }}.

Q: Do you have demo websites which I can visit?¶

A: Yes, please check out the demo website of all included managed templates (they will be kept up-to-date with every ASA 2 update): https://asa2-demo.de/templates/ Here you can see that ASA 2 works with all stores simultaneously: https://asa2-demo.de/different-stores/ Also check out the YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi67kdl2D4hVFNndVEl0uAw And the extensive documentaion: http://docs.getasa2.com/ To read about all ASA news, please visit the blog at http://www.wp-amazon-plugin.com/blog/

Q: I get an error with message ‘cache_dir “/tmp/asa2” is not writable’. What can I do?¶

A: This issue has been fixed with version 1.3.4. The reason for this message is, that your ASA 2 cache is activated but the directory on the filesystem which ASA 2 wants to use for the cache data is not writable. By default, ASA 2 uses a WordPress internal function to determine a local directory with write access and tries to create a subdirectory called “asa2”. If that is not possible, you will receive this message. Please try to create the directory by yourself and set write permissions to it or set a custom directory with cache option File.

Q: I have configured the cronjob to refresh the product via C-Panel like this “/public_html/wp-content/plugins/amazon-simple-affiliate/scripts/script.sh”. Is that right?¶

A: The command is incomplete. This is just the path to the directory where the executable shell script is located. After “script.sh” there must be the name of the cronjob you want to use (ASA 2 has three right now) and the options.

You can find all available options for the product refresh job at http://docs.getasa2.com/cronjobs_repo_refresh.html#options

I would recommend to refresh more than just once a day, maybe once per hour and set a limit for the amount of products to be reloaded on the cronjob execution. This would be the command:

/public_html/wp-content/plugins/amazon-simple-affiliate/scripts/script.sh Asa2_Module_Repo_Cron_Refresh -lt=3600 –limit=50

“Asa2_Module_Repo_Cron_Refresh” after script.sh is the name of the cronjob you want to run. “-lt=3600” sets the LifeTime filter to 3600 seconds and “–limit=50” set the product limit to 50. So this would reload 50 products per hour. I do not know how many products are in your ASA 2 Repo. If there are 1000, 50 per hour would refresh all products over one day.

If “/public_html” is the root directory of your server instance, the command should be ok. If there are other directories above “/public_html”, you should adjust that. Please check if there is a cronjob log on your server. There you can see if the job is running as expected or if there are any errors.

Q: What are ASA 2’s SEO features?¶

A: When it comes to SEO, page speed is an important aspect to care about. ASA 2 has several features to improve page load speed, most importantly the cronjob to pre-load product data: Product Update Cronjob Besides that, ASA 2 has sophisticated caching features: Caching

https is another aspect getting more important. ASA 2 is completely ready for sites connected via https. Just set the option “Prepare for HTTPS” (Prepare for HTTPS)

With activating the option “Page title support” (Page title support), you can use ASA 2 shortcodes in the WP post title, e.g. to insert the title of the product that is described on the page.

ASA 2 supports Yoast SEO so you can use ASA 2 shortcode in the SEO title text field: SEO plugins support