Customer cannot register..email locked to annonymous account

[compunerdy]

I got a Email from a user saying he got a error while trying to register that said "This email is already registered to a existing user account.... "

I searched my users and could not find his E-mail being used until I turned on the option to include anonymous users in my search. It them showed a anonymous user with a username of

e5537bbe-68c2-4efe-aec0-eba1b343d3be

and a E-mail matching his E-mail address.

I deleted the anonymous user so he could create a account but I would imagine this is a bug in the system.

[compunerdy]

I had another customer E-mail me about this today with the same issue as well as another customer who does have an account and he said " I try to sign in it says that my login information is incorrect. When I try to use Forgot my Password, it says my email address is on a disabled account." When I looked at his account it is not marked as disabled and shows no failed login attempts.

[compunerdy]

Is this a issue only I am having I have now had multiple customers complain because they cannot log in.

"I keep trying to login to my account, but my password doesn't work and I always get locked out. When I try to use "Forgot User Name or Password" and put my email in it says "The account associated with this address has been disabled." I have waited until after the 10 minute."

[jguengerich]

Have you looked to see if there are 2 accounts with the same username in the ac_Users table? The site won't let a user create an account using an existing username, but the database doesn't appear to have a unique constraint or key on any of the username or email fields. Not sure how the 2nd entry would get in there, but it is something to look for.

[Katie]

Jay makes a good point. Please check and let us know.

Also, I was wondering if you had ever modified the checkout control in AC7 to allow anonymous checkout? Here is the code that would have been changed -

<param name="AllowAnonymousCheckout" default="false">Possible values are true or false. When true, customers are allowed to check out without creating a user account.</param>

It might explain how this could of happened.

[compunerdy]

I have not had a lot of time to look into this. All I know is I have had multiple customers tell me they cannot create a account because it says their E-mail is already in use. When I search users for their E-mail it is tied to a anonymous account. I have guest checkout disabled in Admin. How are the anonymous account being created and why does it have their E-mails in it?

[compunerdy]

Had this happen again. This time the customer has a account with his E-mail but there is also a anonymous account with his E-mail so he cannot log in as the anonymous account is marked as disabled.

Can nobody tell me why anonymous accounts are being populated with customers E-mails??????? Is this supposed to happen?

[mazhar]

Had this happen again. This time the customer has a account with his E-mail but there is also a anonymous account with his E-mail so he cannot log in as the anonymous account is marked as disabled.

Can nobody tell me why anonymous accounts are being populated with customers E-mails??????? Is this supposed to happen?

Out of the box I don't think if there is any way to have Email unless there is some customization to collect Email anonymously. What is the user name for anonymous user entry? Is it a GUID or starts with zz_anonymous_ ? Just read above that guest checkout is disabled. Do you have address validation enabled?

[Katie]

Hey now...

Before you get upset that no one is helping, let me remind you that on Nov. 3rd, both Jay and I asked you to check on a couple issues. Then 3 days later you said you didn't have time to look into it.

I believe that there is some VERY obscure bug with this, but we've only had a very small group of people ever report it. All of them have upgraded from old versions of AbleCommerce, and we've been trying to track it down for about a year. So, any help you can provide would be great. It is not something we have ever been able to reproduce in our own development environments.

So, now it seems that there are several questions that you can try to answer for us.

Thanks,
Katie

[compunerdy]

I only had 4 users that had the same username. One was from a month ago and the rest from 2008.

As far as I know I have never had anonymous checkout on. Is there a difference between anonymous checkout and the anonymous account from people browsing? I would assume there is and I seem to be having a issue with the anonymous accounts created from people browsing the store and not people checking out.

I purged my anonymous accounts down to 16k and out of those there are 24 accounts marked as anonymous that have E-mails in the email field. I used this query..

Code: Select all

SELECT * FROM ac_users where email is not null and IsAnonymous = 1;

The user names on these accounts are similar to this

Code: Select all

cf85bb17-84ad-43aa-b3ff-ce6516b07639

[Katie]

Is there a difference between anonymous checkout and the anonymous account from people browsing

There isn't really an anonymous checkout, it is called Guest checkout. It creates a user record when the order is placed and is different from someone who is just browsing the website.

there are 24 accounts marked as anonymous that have E-mails in the email field.

This is interesting. I am trying to figure out how this is happening.

Can you try a quick test? Of these 24 'anonymous' accounts with an email, can you take one of them and use the Forgot Password form. Just enter the email and click the Next button. Do you get this red error message? "The account associated with this address has been disabled."

Thanks
Katie

[compunerdy]

It is a little strange..

I tested one that did not have a matching user as well and it said the E-mail was not registered.

I tested one that did have a matching user and it said it was going to send off the E-mail.

But I have had multiple customers say they got the message you posted when trying to use the forgot E-mail link. I do not want to keep sending E-mails to customers so I do not want to test more. Could it be something cache related causing this? Might explain why it worked for me but not the customer. I can try it next time someone E-mails me with the issue.

[compunerdy]

I am still getting customers that cannot create a account because their E-mail is locked to a anonymous user account. Obviously there is code someplace the collects a users E-mail and creates a anonymous account.. is there someway to turn this off?

[Katie]

We will be releasing a Service Pack for Gold R11 around the end of this month. It will include a fix for this problem.

The original issue likely happened back in AC7, so the data cannot be fixed easily. When someone doesn't complete the checkout process but passes the point of entering Billing info, then it creates the user/email but the account is not registered yet. The result is two user records with the same email. One of them is a disabled anonymous account and the other is a registered account.

Thanks
Katie

[compunerdy]

I have a feeling it is not old users from when we where on AC7 but I will wait and see if we keep having the issue after 11.

Got this E-mail from a customer today..

"hello so I wanted to make a account today but it says that i had one but then when i tried to recover password it said the account was disabled?"

So I search for his E-mail and 2 anonymous user accounts show up.
The first says registered since 1/6/2016 and the other said 1/8/2016 with both accounts marked disabled.

[vsammons]

We will be releasing a Service Pack for Gold R11 around the end of this month. It will include a fix for this problem.

The original issue likely happened back in AC7, so the data cannot be fixed easily. When someone doesn't complete the checkout process but passes the point of entering Billing info, then it creates the user/email but the account is not registered yet. The result is two user records with the same email. One of them is a disabled anonymous account and the other is a registered account.

Thanks
Katie

Thanks Katie! Good troubleshooting!

[jmestep]

Katie,
We have some sites, including one R11 SR1 site where people are going through guest checkout, then they are unable to order again because their email is being used by the old account. The old account has user name in pattern zz_ with .IsAnonymous set to false. How can that customer order again? Is this a bug or should it be that way? One site has them going back to 2014, another to 2015. They are not cleared up by the maintenance routine because they are .IsAnonymous=false.
Thanks

[nadeem]

We have some sites, including one R11 SR1 site where people are going through guest checkout, then they are unable to order again because their email is being used by the old account. The old account has user name in pattern zz_ with .IsAnonymous set to false.

Once the user has placed an order, a temporary user account is created for that user to access MyAccount pages. This user has IsAnonymous set to false and can't be removed by the maintenance.

How can that customer order again?

Customer has to reset his account using 'Forgot User Name or Password?' link in order to place order with that account if that email is already associated with any registered account. Otherwise there won't be any issue placing orders as a guest.

Code: Select all

Is this a bug or should it be that way?

This is intentional and expected behavior.

[Katie]

Interesting...but it seems like a bug to me.

If I use Guest Checkout, and then later come back to order again, why can't I use Guest Checkout again? We shouldn't force a registration on the second time through. I'm going to do some testing and let you know if this should be reported as a bug.

Thanks,
Katie

[Katie]

I did some more testing. It is working as we have it designed.

- if the person uses Guest Checkout, they can place future orders with the Guest Checkout option (same email).
- if the person uses Guest Checkout, and they already have a registered user account, then we ask them to login to their existing account.

Maybe it's a business logic issue, but I suppose there is no valid reason to force a Guest Checkout to login to an existing registered account. It just gets tricky trying to determine how to handle the situation. I think it would require an enhancement where we first notify the customer that they already have an account and ask them if they want to use that account or to continue as a guest.

Katie