I just realized that USPS shipping options aren't showing up in the checkout process right now, and customers are able to check out without being charged anything for shipping! This is bad.
 
I have made no changes to my shipping settings (which worked just fine this afternoon), so I'm thinking that the USPS v3 API must be down.
 
Is anyone else experiencing the same problem?
 
On a related note, is there a way to set up a flat fee shipping charge as a backup option only if the USPS system fails like this again?
 
Any and all help would be greatly appreciated!

We're having the same problem. Is there a solution?

I wonder if this has something to do with it:
 
On January 2, 2011, USPS will update domestic shipping services and

No solution yet. Apparently the USPS changes that went into use on Jan 2 caught almost all shopping cart developers unaware. The changes were supposed to be backwards compatible, but this is obviously not the case. USPS didn't post updated guides (see attached) for the different APIs until yesterday, and I can't seem to figure out what needs to be changed to make it work.
 
I have had to suspend all international shipments because no shipping is being charged at all, and I am trying to get a $6 flat rate option or something similar working properly until someone figures out the problem.
 
If anyone figures this problem out, please post!!!

Same problem here. USPS just disappeared from the cart.

seems like a global problem that usps did not do a good job of warning about. here is a somewhat useful link to discussions at the magento cart: http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/215963/
 
no doubt ViArt will have to issue a fix for this. Has anyone requested help from support? (Personally I use weight based tables so no problem, but would like to switch over to live rates.)
 
Greg

I opened an issue with USPS. They wouldn't talk to me when I said I used a shopping cart solution, but when I told them I had my own home grown tool that fails too, they started to help.
 
Viart (and my tool) still use RateV3, which according to the USPS, should still be valid until May 2011. But beginning with the change earlier this month, the Mail Service options that get returned all have extra characters, like the RateV4 would have.
 
For example, we used to get something like this back in the XML response
 
<MailService>Express Mail</MailService><Rate>48.85</Rate></Postage><Postage CLASSID="23">
 
 
but now they're returning this:
 
 
<MailService>Express Mail&lt;sup&gt;&amp;reg;&lt;/sup&gt;</MailService><Rate>48.85</Rate></Postage><Pos tage CLASSID="23">
 
with all the extra characters.
 
I had already requested Viart update the shopping cart to support RateV4, since we'll all have to go to that soon anyway. Have not heard when they'll be done coding that.

Forgot to mention that USPS said that RateV3 should still work, as the changes they made weren't supposed to affect it.
 
To contact the USPS directly, use the email given in the Shipping Module Name notes for USPS -- icustomercare@usps.com
 
If you tell them you're using a shopping cart, they're just going to refuse to talk to you directly and say you have to get ViArt to address it. But I do think they messed up RateV3 when they made their changes.

Your experiences with USPS are identical to mine (with the exception of them hanging up when I pointed out the inconsistancies in their representations made.
yes there are extra characters being returned, regardless of version posted, the magenta patch removes these but didn't fix International, which is also supposed to change commensurate with domestic v4 rollout (international to v2). USPS represents that they are still supporting v3, but won't give you any new API reference material (there isn't any). If anyone gets a patch for domestic, regardless of how dirty it is, please let me know... I won't be holding my breath for a working v4 or an Interv2 from ViArt anytime soon as revision 2 fetches are complex in scope

I was able to strip out the extra code by using the following right after the call to the USPS api
 
$result = html_entity_decode ($result );
$result = str_replace('/sup', 'sup', $result);
$result = preg_replace("/<sup>&reg;<sup>/", "", $result);
$result = htmlentities($result);
 
and echoing the $result variable shows they're gone, but it still doesn't match on the rates. This is going to need help from a better coder.

What I heard from my shipping coordinator is that USPS provided some assistance to Endicia, our postage system, so they were able to fix what they needed to make that part of our fulfillment flow work.
 
Has anyone submitted a support case to Viart, and if so, what has been the reply?

I sent a support request in on the 6th, this is the answer I got:
 
Hi Wendy,
 
This is clearly a USPS problem and there is nothing we can do about it. Of course, we will read their latest documentations for rates 3 and 4 and compare it to our script but it will take awhile as we don't know for sure what exactly was changed and will have to go through every detail.
 
That's why please use other shipping methods until this is fixed because solution won't be available soon.
 
Best Regards,
Vera
ViArt Support Team
 
********************************************************
 
I know other carts have issued patches already. Now that we know what's being returned, maybe Viart will be able to patch it soon?
 
/Wendy

Wendy,
 
Regarding Viart's response, while I agree the problem started with USPS, other carts have been able to fix their script to get it to work with the new response.
 
The following carts have fixes released:
Magento
Volusion
3D Cart
Zen Cart
...these are just the ones I am aware of.
 
Hope to add Viart to the list very soon! We ship by UPS and USPS and use the real time lookup for both. Most folks are okay with just UPS for now, but anyone with a PO Box or APO/FPO has to be manually calculated and charged after the order is placed.

Viart has posted a patch in the Announcements section.

The patch does not work on pre 3.6 releases. For those, you can simply put the following in the USPS V3 php module, right after the API call comes back
 
$result = str_replace("&amp;lt;sup&amp;gt;&amp;amp;reg;&amp;lt;/sup&amp;gt;", "", $result);
 
This strips all the new stuff out of the response, and things are back to normal.

I'm a noobie when it comes to php stuff. Using Viart 3,1. Where in the usps.php file does the API call get returned?

The patch is not working properly for me. I am getting quoted a $51 shipping rate for a 1.5 lb package in my home state. I have a temporary shipping rate system set up, but I am losing money on shipping every day.
 
Has anyone gotten this new patch to work the way it used to work in 3.6?
 
Can anyone tell me how to hack a fix into place?