USPS - “Sorry, no quotes are available for this order at this time.”

Question

I have been all over looking for a solution for this. Unfortunately, nothing I tried so far seems to work. I started receiving this error a while ago. When a customer tries to get a shipping quote in the cart, nothing is returned. When attempting a checkout (normal Magento checkout), the following is returned: "Sorry, no quotes are available for this order at this time.". I have enabled the debug option in the USPS shipping method, which yields the expected result:

2013-04-05T17:20:39+00:00 DEBUG (7): Array
(
    [request] => <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<RateV4Request USERID="XXXXX"><Revision>2</Revision><Package ID="0"><Service>PRIORITY</Service><ZipOrigination>46528</ZipOrigination><ZipDestination>46506</ZipDestination><Pounds>0</Pounds><Ounces>0.7</Ounces><Container>FLAT RATE BOX</Container><Size>REGULAR</Size><Machinable>true</Machinable></Package></RateV4Request>

    [result] => <?xml version="1.0"?>
<RateV4Response><Package ID="0"><ZipOrigination>46528</ZipOrigination><ZipDestination>46506</ZipDestination><Pounds>0</Pounds><Ounces>0.7</Ounces><Container>FLAT RATE BOX</Container><Size>REGULAR</Size><Zone>1</Zone><Postage CLASSID="17"><MailService>Priority Mail&amp;lt;sup&amp;gt;&amp;amp;reg;&amp;lt;/sup&amp;gt; Medium Flat Rate Box</MailService><Rate>12.35</Rate><SpecialServices><SpecialService><ServiceID>9</ServiceID><ServiceName>Certificate of Mailing</ServiceName><Available>true</Available><AvailableOnline>false</AvailableOnline><Price>1.20</Price><PriceOnline>0</PriceOnline></SpecialService><SpecialService><ServiceID>1</ServiceID><ServiceName>Insurance</ServiceName><Available>true</Available><AvailableOnline>true</AvailableOnline><Price>1.95</Price><PriceOnline>1.95</PriceOnline><DeclaredValueRequired>true</DeclaredValueRequired><DueSenderRequired>false</DueSenderRequired></SpecialService><SpecialService><ServiceID>5</ServiceID><ServiceName>Registered Mail&amp;lt;sup&amp;gt;&amp;amp;trade;&amp;lt;/sup&amp;gt;</ServiceName><Available>true</Available><AvailableOnline>false</AvailableOnline><Price>11.20</Price><PriceOnline>0</PriceOnline><DeclaredValueRequired>true</DeclaredValueRequired><DueSenderRequired>false</DueSenderRequired></SpecialService><SpecialService><ServiceID>4</ServiceID><ServiceName>Registered without Insurance</ServiceName><Available>true</Available><AvailableOnline>false</AvailableOnline><Price>11.20</Price><PriceOnline>0</PriceOnline></SpecialService><SpecialService><ServiceID>0</ServiceID><ServiceName>Certified Mail&amp;lt;sup&amp;gt;&amp;amp;reg;&amp;lt;/sup&amp;gt;</ServiceName><Available>true</Available><AvailableOnline>false</AvailableOnline><Price>3.10</Price><PriceOnline>0</PriceOnline></SpecialService><SpecialService><ServiceID>13</ServiceID><ServiceName>USPS Tracking/Delivery Confirmation&amp;lt;sup&amp;gt;&amp;amp;trade;&amp;lt;/sup&amp;gt;</ServiceName><Available>true</Available><AvailableOnline>true</AvailableOnline><Price>0.00</Price><PriceOnline>0.00</PriceOnline></SpecialService><SpecialService><ServiceID>7</ServiceID><ServiceName>Return Receipt for Merchandise</ServiceName><Available>true</Available><AvailableOnline>false</AvailableOnline><Price>4.10</Price><PriceOnline>0</PriceOnline></SpecialService><SpecialService><ServiceID>15</ServiceID><ServiceName>Signature Confirmation&amp;lt;sup&amp;gt;&amp;amp;trade;&amp;lt;/sup&amp;gt;</ServiceName><Available>true</Available><AvailableOnline>true</AvailableOnline><Price>2.70</Price><PriceOnline>2.20</PriceOnline></SpecialService><SpecialService><ServiceID>19</ServiceID><ServiceName>Adult Signature Required</ServiceName><Available>false</Available><AvailableOnline>true</AvailableOnline><Price>0</Price><PriceOnline>4.95</PriceOnline></SpecialService><SpecialService><ServiceID>20</ServiceID><ServiceName>Adult Signature Restricted Delivery</ServiceName><Available>false</Available><AvailableOnline>true</AvailableOnline><Price>0</Price><PriceOnline>5.15</PriceOnline></SpecialService><SpecialService><ServiceID>6</ServiceID><ServiceName>Collect on Delivery</ServiceName><Available>true</Available><AvailableOnline>false</AvailableOnline><Price>6.45</Price><PriceOnline>0</PriceOnline><DeclaredValueRequired>true</DeclaredValueRequired><DueSenderRequired>true</DueSenderRequired></SpecialService></SpecialServices></Postage></Package></RateV4Response>

    [__pid] => 394
)

I have installed the Webshopapps_Wsausps extension, just to make sure it has nothing to do with an invalid USPS REQUEST or RESPONSE.

I also checked to make sure that the allowed countries are correct

Unfortunately neither of this help.

Any pointers would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

Well this turned out to be a stupid problem. I (unknowingly) switched the container size from "Variable" to "Rectangular" and that's what caused the issue. I switched it back to "Variable" and low and behold the correct rates are returned and displayed. What threw me off was that USPS did in fact return a rate but the module did not like it and discarded it.

The error message returned to the customer is definitely misleading, especially as Fabian Blechschmidt pointed out, the message does in fact seem to come from the PayPal module, which has absolutely nothing to do with the USPS shipping module.

Answer 2

I never used this carrier, but the messages is added here:

/app/code/core/Mage/XmlConnect/Block/Cart/Paypal/Mecl/Shippingmethods.php:71

So the question is, why is $groups == false?

$groups = $this->getShippingRateGroups();
if ($groups) {
    // ...
} else {
    $message = $this->_quote->isVirtual() ? $this->__('No shipping method required.')
        : $this->__('Sorry, no quotes are available for this order at this time.');
        $methodListXmlObj->addCustomChild('method', null, array('label' => $message));
}

There is only one place I can find where the ShippingRateGroups is set:

/app/code/core/Mage/Paypal/Block/Express/Review.php:216

I searched for setShippingRateGroups() and Shipping_Rate_Groups

This value is somewhere loaded and set implicit. Good luck with the debugging.

Answer 3

I saw that the USPS extension is based on their Dimensional shipping extension. Does the extension allow you to set up shipping package/box sizes? Is there a possibility that your products are dimensionally larger than the box(es) you have setup, or that you haven't set up any boxes yet? We ran into that issue with a similar extension.

Otherwise, it might be worth looking at your log files to see if Magento is "gracefully" swallowing an exception and trying to continue processing the request.