It seems to me that somehow Google Checkout is having a problem communicating with my BVC5 shopping cart. I have followed BVC's setup instructions for Google Checkout and believe I have things properly configured. The 3-second rule has been brought up as a possible reason for the problem but I find that a little hard to accept in my case. I do not use any shipping methods which require contact with the shipping provider. Shipping rates are determined by shipping address and cost of the order. What really makes me question whether the 3-second rule applies to my situation and semi-validates my setup process being correct is the fact that Google Checkout is able to dynamically pull the correct types of shipping methods. When I go to Google Checkout and fiddle with the shipping address, Google populates the dropdown menu with the correct shipping methods based upon the shipping rules I set up in my BVC5 shopping cart. However, the pricing for these methods are wrong. If I had set up something wrong, I would assume Google Checkout wouldn't even be able to pull the correct shipping methods. Also, Google Checkout seems to be able to pull the correct methods within 3 seconds so why can't it pull the correct prices within that timeframe? I am thinking that in my particular situation it's a problem with Google Checkout not passing back the order total to BVC5. My shipping is set up to take order total into consideration when calculating shipping rates so maybe BVC5 has no concept of what this value is and is therefore unable to return something to Google Checkout. Thanks to all who have contributed to this topic thus far.

Andy I understand you were only trying to help and appreciate your effort. I think many of us are just growing frustrated with BV. We can't be more clear this is a critical area (and there are likely many more staying silent reading here or suffering offline) and we're spinning wheels without even an acknowledgement by BV. K96816 will likely find what I did, outside the initial support period this known bug is considered to be something we should have to pay more money to get help.

Just fix Google Checkout already. How much more can the users do? I offered to give them 100% access to our server and google checkout account to find the resolution - nothing in return.

The error is in the page. Maybe it will be resolved by SP3, maybe it's being caused by an overlap of patches. Everyone from the host to Google has verified the page is crapping out when the data is being sent. It's not timing out, it's tossing an error. They are stock BV pages. There are three people on this thread actually using BVC5 currently with Google Checkout, all of us having problems. The ones telling us there is no problem aren't currently using Checkout.

BVSoftware.Bvc5.Core Object reference not set to an instance of an object.[ at BVSoftware.Bvc5.Core.Utilities.GoogleCheckoutUtilities.ParseOrderId(XmlElement element) at BVSoftware.Bvc5.Core.Controls.GoogleNotificationProcessor.ProcessNewOrderNotification(String content) at googlenotify.Page_Load(Object sender, EventArgs e) at System.Web.UI.Control.OnLoad(EventArgs e) at System.Web.UI.Control.LoadRecursive() at System.Web.UI.Page.ProcessRequestMain(Boolean includeStagesBeforeAsyncPoint, Boolean includeStagesAfterAsyncPoint) ]

Google has a beta that uses multiple carrier-based shipping -- the problem is THEY retrieve the rates based on what information you provide them (adjusting price by percentage up/down, etc.), but for example if you have a discount wiht UPS/FedEx, that won't be the same, so you have to guess as far as a percentage. You can get close, but then customers will get one rate when they do a shipping estimate on your store and then another when they go to Google Checkout. It may be close, but it won't look good to you as a vendor.

I don't understand why they won't accept rates passed on to them from BV -- like PayPal does

k96816: When BV is busy (like now getting SP3 out the door), they do not monitor all forum discussions. You can purchase additional support here. I suspect that if the problem turns out to be a bug, it will not count against your incidents (but you should call them first to confirm). I'm sure there are other sites using custom shipping rates--for example you can certainly calculate custom rates based on the order contents within the time limit. The only potential issue with custom shipping rates is when you need to contact a carrier (UPS, FedEx, etc) for a real-time rate quote. To speed this up, some people download the carrier rate tables and use custom code to look up the rate themselves.