Analysis of interface errors of CleverReach interfaces

We’re continuously developing plugins and interfaces for connecting an external system (e.g. CRM, CMS or shop systems) and our email marketing tool CleverReach. Our plugins allow you to quickly establish a connection between both systems in just a few steps and get started with your email marketing. Our plugins are all free of charge (except for PrestaShop) and updated on a regular basis.

We start this post by giving you a checklist of the most important criteria for you, after that we’ll list the most common error messages and answer frequently asked questions. In case our list doesn’t solve your problem, or you have different problems or questions, we give you a list of notes and contact data at the end of the post.

Checklist

1. Are you using the latest plugin version?

You can always find the latest version of the plugin directly in your plugin manager when searching for “CleverReach“.

2. Is the plugin connected and activated?

Make sure the plugin is connected correctly with your account. Navigate to the plugin in your Plugin Manager. If you receive a note that you have to connect the plugin with your account, it is not yet connected. Establish a connection with the plugin. Also check whether the plugin is activated in your Plugin Manager.  

3. Account Data

Have you entered all your account data via the Profile Icon > [My Account -> Settings -> My Data]? 

You can only establish a successful connection when having entered all your data.

4. API Access for the User

Have you activated „REST API“ access for the user connecting with CleverReach via the plugin? You can find instructions here.

5. Access Restrictions

The shop needs to directly be accessible via the internet. There must be no HTACCESS active that restricts access to the store or plugin.

Please make sure that all files of the plugin have general permissions for the plugin to send and receive data. 

6. Technical Requirements

The store or server must be able to process and execute CURL. 

The browser you are trying to connect with should be the latest Chrome or Firefox version. 

Common Error Messages

"Bad Request: maximum attribute count exceeded":

You have created too many data fields in your CleverReach account. You can create a maximum of 45 data fields. The plugin automatically creates 17 data fields during the initial synchronization, e.g. first and last name, address details, etc.

Delete data fields from your CleverReach account that are not filled out or no longer needed. The error message should have disappeared after that.

"(InitialSyncTask) failed due to extended inactivity period":

Synchronization takes longer than expected. For example, it may help to increase the timeout in the store.

1. Adjust the PHP configuration (php.ini file) on the shop server.
   1. Set the variable max_execution_time to 300 (5 minutes),
   2. then set the PHP variable max_input_vars to 10000
   3. and then start the initial import again

“Cannot determine correct URL. Shop not configured correctly or plugin not active!”

This error message means that the shop URL and shop configuration URL are not identical.

Go to the Settings of your shop and take a look at the shop URL and compare it to the one shown in the address bar of your browser. The URLs should be the same.  

In case they’re not identical, please log in from the URL provided in the store configuration.

Frequently Asked Questions

Question: Not all of my recipients are transferred. What can I do?

Answer: This depends on the plugin version. The latest version of our plugins transfers all your recipients as active recipients, if they are subscribed newsletter recipients in your system, including Double Opt in.

All other recipients – buyers etc. – are also transferred to CleverReach as active recipients when you are using our v3 plugins.

Question: We have huge performance issues when using the CleverReach Shopware plugin. Store performance is extremely slow. Why’s that?

Answer: The most likely reason for your store running slower than usual may be due to the asynchronous check of our plugin. Every 5 seconds, the system checks whether new recipient data, orders, tags, etc. need to be transferred.

This way we ensure the live synchronization in our plugin. For example, if you use our marketing automation and you want to trigger an automation after a customer has signed up or bought something, the live synchronization is very important for immediately sending out an email.

The CleverReach plugin carries out most of the tasks in the background. In order to detect and start the tasks in the background, the CleverReach plugin simulates long-running (background) processes by asynchronously calling "background worker web requests" with a minimum delay of 5 seconds between two consecutive calls.

This means that the plugin sends the web requests (i.e. the frontend URL) to itself every 5 seconds. If you want, we can also increase this period to any time interval, but this would mean that the changes in the store need a certain time (time interval that the customer wants to set) to be transferred to CleverReach.

The time interval of 5 seconds is the default value for all our customers (since we want to transfer the data to CleverReach as soon as it appears in the store).If you would like to customize the period or we can do it for you, feel free to email us or submit a request with all the info as described below. Many thanks in advance.

Question: The connection between the plugin and CleverReach isn’t working.

Possible answer: If you use additional authorization (htaccess) on your server, it is necessary to make the CleverReach plugin URL's publicly accessible. The following URL's must be accessible from the Internet when you are using Shopware 5 for example:

{shop_url}/CleverReachAsyncProcess/run

{shop_url}/CleverReachAuth/redirectCallback

{shop_url}/CleverReachAutomationEventsController/handle

{shop_url}/CleverReachBlogSearch/search

{shop_url}/CleverReachFormEventsController/webhookHandle

{shop_url}/CleverReachForms/form

{shop_url}/CleverReachProductSearch/search

{shop_url}/CleverReachReceiverEventsController/webhookHandle

{shop_url}/CleverReachSearch/productSearch

{shop_url}/CleverReachWebhooks/processWebhookRequest

For each integration, the URLs are different. Please contact us as below if you are using a different integration so we can send you the appropriate URLs. Thank you very much in advance.

Question: The autoconfiguration has failed.

Answer: The autoconfiguration is performed when the module is opened for the first time (after the installation). This checks the existing store configurations and tries to make an internal call to set the plugin or store settings correctly.

This process serves to determine the optimal plugin setup and to ensure later usability.

These configurations are then saved and used for all asynchronous plugin process calls.

If the system detects that something is wrong with the background processes and task execution, the system should take the default URL parameters of the store and try to execute the asynchronous test call with the default system configuration. If the call fails, the system should repeat the test with all combinations of the following options:

1. Change the calling protocol from HTTP to HTTPS and vice versa, depending on what was used by default.
2. Increase the timeout of an asynchronous call, since some systems do not accept a cURL timeout of less than one second.
3. Set/reset the option to follow 301/302 redirects.
4. Use IPv4 or IPv6 IP resolution options.
5. When all options are successfully performed and saved, you will be redirected to the selection of the recipient import.

If the plugin or you yourself could not successfully change the store settings, please contact our service team. Many thanks in advance.

You keep getting error messages or different ones than the ones in our list? Or you want to contact our service team?

To analyze your case better, please send us a detailed error description. You can also send us screenshots that visualize the error.

For a detailed analysis, please also send us your backend URL and a username and password. Furthermore, we need the FTP access data for your server to be able to perform the analysis quickly and successfully.

Before accessing the external software, we ask for confirmation of the disclaimer below. For this purpose, an email from the admin of the CleverReach account or the account holder is sufficient:

I hereby acknowledge the following information:

"I acknowledge that CleverReach® owes only email support according to the GTC. Access to my system is a voluntary service that goes beyond the contract. This process is a courtesy relationship in the narrower sense, for which CleverReach assumes no liability."

Send an email with all details to support@cleverreach.com. Our service will be happy to help you the best possible way. Thanks in advance.