OSCommerce: How to find an order in the database

[Brian Turner]

A test OSCommerce install I have set up shows a major flaw with the software - when paying by Paypal, the order is only inserted into the database if the customer clicks out of Paypal via the Return to Merchant link.

So in a default OSCommerce install, it's easy to have orders paid for which never show in your admin database.

There is apparently a fix for this via the Paypal IPN mod, but in the meantime, if anyone else here has the same problem, do the following to find an order directly in the OSCommerce database:

1. The first thing you will need to know is the customer's ID. You can find this by logging into your osCommerce admin section, then click the "customers" button on the left side and find the customer that made the purchase. When you find the customer, click on their name, then look at the URL that you are currently on. Find the cID= in the URL and the number after the equals sign is the customer ID.

2. Now login to phpmyadmin - such as via Cpanel - click the SQL tab at the top of the when when you've selected a database, then run the following query:

 SELECT products_description.products_name,
customers_basket.customers_basket_quantity
FROM customers_basket, products_description
WHERE customers_basket.customers_id = '<PUT CUSTOMERS_ID HERE>'
AND customers_basket.products_id = products_description.products_id
AND products_description.language_id = '1'

That should do it.