Error messages when attempting to order through the Online Store

Although there have been many hundreds of orders placed through the Online Store since it went live in September 2010, several customers have reported error messages and have been unable to place their order; or there has been a problem during the checkout process of going round in circles from checking out to going back to the shopping cart, and variations of that.

In fact, the problem is always at the customer’s end and is to do with cookies and temporary files on the customer's computer. It is never anything to do with purchasing through this particular website.

Problem
Here are typical examples of the emails which we have occasionally received:

I would like to buy the new DVD "The Secrets of Tone Production". Unfortunately I cannot get to the end of the buying process. Instead, I get the following error:
There has been an error
Sorry, there is a problem with this merchant's account. If you are able, please contact the merchant to inform them of the error.
This happens when I click on "Check out with PayPal" and even when I choose the country (Germany). Can you tell me what to do or give me another way to obtain the DVD?
Hi, I was trying to order the DVD the other day and the link that was supposed to direct me to Paypal is dead. Could you help please? Thanks in advance!
Your website is very frustrating.  I'm trying to checkout and it does not respond when I hit the pay with paypal button. I selected country, 3 times, and went in circles 3 times. Very frustrating.
When I tried to order just now and clicked on the “shopping cart proceed to checkout” at the bottom of order form it doesn’t go through; it pops up again with the same page. I used a Visa card. Don’t want PayPal.
Your website doesn't go anywhere when you click on the Paypal and there is no other way to pay for the DVD on tone production. Could you please advise and give me a safe and secure option?
I am attempting to order the Simon Fischer DVD on Tone from the website.  I live in the US - but I can't get past the last page before check-out - after giving me the postage and totals in pounds, it simply refreshes the same page when I click "proceed to checkout"
Solution
The simple solution, which has worked in almost all cases, is just to reboot the computer, preferably switching off completely and waiting for a couple of minutes before switching on again.
This should automatically delete the temporary cookies and other temporary files. If it still doesn’t work, you need to delete them manually: 
  • If your browser is Internet Explorer go to "Tools" menu, then go to "Internet options". A dialogue box appears. Select the "Delete" button followed by "Browsing history". Another dialogue bow appears. Choose "Temporary internet files", "Cookies" and "History" and click on "Delete".
  • If your browser is Firefox, go to "Tools Menu", then go to "Clear Recent History". A dialogue box appears. Click on "Details", then options appear underneath. Tick "Browsing and Download History", "Cache", "Cookies" and Click on "OK" to clear the Temporary files.
  • In Google chrome, click on the "Customize and control Google chrome" option on the right side button. Then click "Options" from the list. Click on the "Personal stuff" tab. Under the Browsing data, click on the "Clear browsing data" button. A new popup appears. Make sure that "Clear browsing history", "clear download history", "empty cache", "Delete Cookies" and "Clear saved form data" options are all ticked. From the drop down list for the period select "Everything" and click on "Clear browsing data" button. Then close the options window. Then refresh your browser.
  • Make sure you are not using AOL browser as it is not recommended by the technical department. 

However, all this amounts to no more than simply rebooting, which should have the same effect.

In addition several customers have emailed again, after finally succeeding in ordering, to say that the problem was because of using Firefox as the browser. Apparently this will not work. Safari or something else does work where Firefox does not. But other customers have said that Firefox did work fine.

If you still experience problems, please remember that you can always make a payment direct into the PayPal account of simonfischeronline@gmail.com without needing to go through the site at all. Please email Paul Owen direct at simonfischeronline@gmail.com to set this up.