Not able to create shipment programmatically

Question

Below is a snippet from my code. I get the following error when I try and create a shipment and track info for the order.

Uncaught exception 'Mage_Core_Exception' with message 'Cannot create an empty   shipment.' in /var/www/app/Mage.php:595
Stack trace:
#0 /var/www/app/code/core/Mage/Sales/Model/Order/Shipment.php(556):   Mage::throwException('Cannot create a...')
#1 /var/www/app/code/core/Mage/Core/Model/Abstract.php(316): Mage_Sales_Model_Order_Shipment->_beforeSave()
#2 /var/www/app/code/core/Mage/Core/Model/Resource/Transaction.php(151): Mage_Core_Model_Abstract->save()
#3 /var/dataimporters/updateorder.php(197): Mage_Core_Model_Resource_Transaction->save()
#4 {main}
thrown in /var/www/app/Mage.php on line 595

Any recommendation as to why my script is resulting in an empty shipment?

    if ($shipping['shipper'] == 'UPS') {
    $title = 'United Parcel Service';
    }
    if ($shipping['shipper'] == 'USPS') {
    $title = 'United States Postal Service';
    }
    if ($shipping['shipper'] == 'custom') {
    $title = 'Custom Value';
    }

     Mage::init();
    $comment = null;
    $email = false;
    $includeComment = false;                                                    
    $order = Mage::getModel('sales/order')->loadByIncrementId($orderId);
    $convertor = Mage::getModel('sales/convert_order');
    $shipment = $convertor->toShipment($order);

    foreach ($order->getAllItems() as $orderItem)
    {
        if (!$orderItem->getQtyToShip()) {
            continue;
        }
        if ($orderItem->getIsVirtual()) {
            continue;
        }
        $item = $convertor->itemToShipmentItem($orderItem);
        $qty = $orderItem->getQtyToShip();
        $item->setQty($qty);
        $shipment->addItem($item);
    }

    $trackdata = array();
    $trackdata['carrier_code'] = $carrier;                                  
    $trackdata['title'] = $title;                                          
    $trackdata['number'] = $trackInfo;                                       



    $track = Mage::getModel('sales/order_shipment_track')->addData($trackdata);
    $shipment->addTrack($track);
    //echo "<pre>"; print_r($shipment);echo "<pre>"; exit;

    Mage::register('current_shipment', $shipment);

    $shipment->register();
    $shipment->addComment($comment, $email && $includeComment);
    $shipment->setEmailSent(true);
    $shipment->getOrder()->setIsInProcess(true);


    $transactionSave = Mage::getModel('core/resource_transaction')
        ->addObject($shipment)
        ->addObject($shipment->getOrder())
        ->save();

    $shipment->sendEmail($email, ($includeComment ? $comment : ''));
}

Answer 1

Your code works fine for me in my development environment. What you may be doing is passing an order entity_id instead of the Increment Id on this line:

$order = Mage::getModel('sales/order')->loadByIncrementId($orderId);

Make sure $orderId is the order's entity_id or change $orderId to the order's Increment Id.

Answer 2

OR you could change this following line to

   $order = Mage::getModel('sales/order')->loadByIncrementId($orderId);

to

   $order = Mage::getModel('sales/order')->load($orderId);