Fedex Web Service Change: Impact on Magento & Free Patch

Posted by: Genevieve Thursday, March 20th, 2014

FedEx Logo

Earlier this week some Magento merchants began to experience issues with the standard FedEx carrier including issues retrieving rates, tracking information, and generating labels. Magento Certified Developer Phillip Jackson (www.somethingdigital.com; on Twitter @philwinkle) was one of the first to dig into this issue and helped us narrow down the cause.


What happened?

Beginning on Sunday, March 16th FedEx began to shut down the Web Services endpoint used by Magento. This endpoint’s URLs have been deprecated and, while still responsive in some regions, FedEx plans to shut them down worldwide. While FedEx has not made any public announcement to this effect, we have had it confirmed by several FedEx Web Services representatives that this is the case and that FedEx has distributed official internal documents outlining this move.

To put it as plainly as possible, FedEx is in the process of moving and they haven’t left a forwarding address.


How does this effect Magento merchants?

If you are among the merchants effected by this change you will be unable to generate FedEx labels in Magento and may experience issues retrieving rates and tracking information. If you are not experiencing any of these issues then it may not be necessary to apply the patch below. You or your developer should, of course, evaluate any new extension for your Magento site before installation.

If you are no longer seeing FedEx rates on your site or are no longer able to generate FedEx labels, you will need to install a patch or update to restore these services. See the “What Should I Do?” section below for instructions.

For those looking for a more technical, manual approach, Phillip Jackson has published the changes necessary to correct this issue on Github.


What Should I Do?

If you are running Magento CE 1.6 or above (EE 1.11 or above)…

download and install our free FedEx Web Services Patch March 2014.

If you are running Magento CE 1.5 and below  (EE 1.10 and below)…

you’ll need to download and install our free FedEx Web Services Patch May 2012 which has been updated to include the fixes from the March 2014 patch. You will only need to install this patch, not both patches. See our blog post on the May 2012 Fedex Ship Manager retirement for more details.

If you have the WebShopApps Dimensional Shipping extension installed

we have an update for this extension which includes the same fix as our March 2014 FedEx Web Services Patch but also corrects the same issue in our extension. Please contact us to receive this update. You will only need to install this update, not this update and the new patch.


Potential issue with meter numbers

Another potential issue with FedEx Meter Numbers has been identified as effecting some merchants. This is not likely related to the issue above and will not be fixed with the FedEx Web Services Patch. We’ve had some reports that a few merchants have stopped receiving FedEx rates, tracking, and labels due to expired Meter Numbers. The merchants have needed to call FedEx technical support and request a new Meter Number be issued for their account.


Final notes

We have provided this post and the associated patch for the benefit of the Magento community. This information is correct to the best of our knowledge. If you have additional questions we recommend that you contact your web developer or FedEx representative.

WebShopApps are Magento Platinum Industry Partners, Gold sponsors of Magento’s Imagine eCommerce 2014 conference and premier providers of shipping solutions for rate management in Magento. Browse our current catalog of Magento shipping extensions or contact us to discuss your needs. We’re on Twitter @WebShopApps.

 

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3 Responses to “Fedex Web Service Change: Impact on Magento & Free Patch”

  1. Brad says:

    My site is on 1.5.1 and I’ve never used fedex before but want to now. I tried getting your FedEx Web Services Patch May 2012 but it seems like it isn’t available anymore. I tried installing the other one you’ve listed above but it doesn’t seem to do anything. What am I doing wrong?

  2. Genevieve says:

    Hi Brad, thanks for the comment and apologies for the issue you had. We’ve updated the 1.5.x patch on Webshopapps.com so you should be able to download it now.
    If you are running CE 1.5.x and below you should use the May 2012 patch only.

  3. Alex says:

    Do you still have this extension? I checked archive.org and looks like you discontinued it this year. I need it so that a client can add fedex to their M 1.5 site. Do you know why it disappeared?

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