PHP redirect without header()

It’s very frustrating when you want to redirect from one page to another, and you get the error:

Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /some/filename.php:12) in /some/filename.php on line 99

The problem is Headers are already sent, or in simple language the output is already sent to browser when your header() function is called. The best solution is not to pass headers (send html/output to browser) till the point header() function is fired.

Another way is to use output buffering. Without output buffering (the default), your HTML is sent to the browser in pieces as PHP processes through your script. With output buffering, your HTML is stored in a variable and sent to the browser as one piece at the end of your script. For using this method, you have to start your file with ob_start(); so that output gets buffered.

But what if you don’t care whether the output is sent or not, you anyway want the redirect to work? This simple function will do the trick for you. It will check if headers are not sent, then it will call the PHP’s header function to redirect. But if the headers are sent, it will use Javascript to redirect to the URL you want.

// OR Used to without function .....


function redirect($url)
{
    if (!headers_sent())
    {
        header('Location: '.$url);
        exit;
    }
    else
    {
        echo '<script type="text/javascript">';
        echo 'window.location.href="'.$url.'";';
        echo '</script>';
        echo '<noscript>';
        echo '<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="0;url='.$url.'" />';
        echo '</noscript>';
        exit;
    }
}

Magento bug – Checkout cart 500 error – Redirect loops

Magento checkout cart gives 500 error and redirect loops when there is a shopping cart rule with Category condition.

I found a bug in Magento which redirects shopping cart indefinitely causing it 500 internal server error. This can be a serious bug as customer will not able to shop if this happens. I noticed this happens when there is a shopping cart rule which have Category in conditions of the rule.

If total quantity equals or greater than 1 for a subselection of items in cart matching ALL of these conditions:
Category is 125

So for example you have a shopping cart rule where you want to give some discount or free product if at least one product is chosen from specific Category, this triggers the error in frontend shopping cart. Main reason here is Category condition. If you remove category condition then the error should go away. But if you want to keep the category condition and still want Magento to handle the shopping cart promotion rule, check the code changes below:

To solve this I copied below file to my local
app/code/core/Mage/SalesRule/Model/Rule/Condition/Product/Combine.php

and edited the function validate:

**
     * Validate a condition with the checking of the child value
     * @param Varien_Object $object
     *
     * @return bool
     */
    public function validate(Varien_Object $object)
    {
        /** @var Mage_Catalog_Model_Product $product */
        $product = $object->getProduct();
        if (!($product instanceof Mage_Catalog_Model_Product)) {
            $product = Mage::getModel('catalog/product')->load($object->getProductId());
        }

        $valid = parent::validate($object);

        /* Prashant commented whole block, as it causes redirect loop and Segmentation fault in apache
        if (!$valid && $product->getTypeId() == Mage_Catalog_Model_Product_Type_Configurable::TYPE_CODE) {
            $children = $object->getChildren();
            //$valid = $children && $this->validate($children[0]); //Prashant commented, issue....
        }*/


        return $valid;
    }


    Thanks:-
    

magento cookie text replaces description in google

I was facing the exact same problem: Google was showing the cookie warning text as description in search results for my Magento store.

The problem turned out to be my Meta description being too short. Solution for me was making the meta description longer, atleast about 150 characters (including spaces).

What goes in your < description > tag is found in Magento's backoffice:

  system>configuration>general>design, under HTML head, Default Description.

After save, I cleared cache and checked the page source for showing the updated meta. To make things with Google go faster, I used their webmaster tools to submit the store url for crawling. After a little wait, Google was showing the store's description in the search results just like it's supposed to.

Hope this can still help you!

Cheers :)