Magento returning incorrect customer data on frontend pages - magento

Question

isn't this the right method to get Name of logged in customer?
<?php echo Mage::helper('customer')->getCustomer()->getName(); ?>
I have a website with live chat functionality. Yesterday I have been asked to pass email address and the name of the logged into the user into the Javascript Tracking variable code placed in the head section of the website. So that the operators could see who is on the website and whom are they talking to without any need to ask about their information.
So I passed the information from Magento into the Javascript code but now I see this very strange thing happening. For example,
If I am logged in with credentials Name = John Email =
john12#yahoo.com
Then This name and email variable values are changing with the change of pages. For example if I click on any product page the variable values which I am passing changes to some other user's information.
Name becomes Ricky Email becomes ricky23#gmail.com
this variable values are kept on changing back to john and from john to something else with the change of pages. So operator does not have any idea whom are they talking because the values are kept on changing. Also, user ricky or who ever it changes to also exist in the database. so it is picking up random person from the database.
This is what i did to pass the code to javascript. Please let me know if that is not the right code to pass the information. Please check the php code I am using to fetch information from Magento. Roughly, I receive incorrect value once in 5 times. Please provide some assistance. Thanks in advance.
<?php
$customer = Mage::getSingleton('customer/session')->getCustomer();
$email = $customer->getEmail();
$firstname = $customer->getFirstname();
$lastname= $customer->getLastname();
$name = $firstname . ' ' . $lastname;
?>
<script type="text/javascript">
if (typeof(lpMTagConfig) == "undefined"){ lpMTagConfig = {};}
if (typeof(lpMTagConfig.visitorVar) == "undefined"){ lpMTagConfig.visitorVar = [];}
lpMTagConfig.visitorVar[lpMTagConfig.visitorVar.length] = 'Email=<?php echo $email; ?>';
lpMTagConfig.visitorVar[lpMTagConfig.visitorVar.length] = 'Name=<?php echo $name; ?>';
</script>
I'm also attaching a snap shot

Answer 1

I'd be interested to hear how you're adding this code to the page? Is it in it's own block, or are you adding it to footer.phtml, or similar? If your adding to an existing block be sure to check the block caching settings of that template.
To confirm the caching hypothesis I'd ask the following:
Do you get the same name, all the time, on the same page? When you refresh the page, do you get the same name and email in the Javascript?
Does the problem persist with caching disabled?
This doesn't sound like a singleton problem at all. Each execution of the PHP script is isolated from the others, serving one page request. There's no chance of another customer's object moving between invokations of the script.

Answer 2

It is a matter of understanding the singleton pattern. If you call your code twice:
$customer_1 = Mage::helper('customer')->getCustomer()->getName();
$customer_2 = Mage::helper('customer')->getCustomer()->getName();
you get two different instances of the object. But... if one of them has already implemented a singleton pattern in its constructor or has implemented a singleton getInstance then both objects will actually point to the same thing.
Looking at the customer/helper/Data.php code you can see the function
public function getCustomer()
{
if (empty($this->_customer)) {
$this->_customer = Mage::getSingleton('customer/session')->getCustomer();
}
return $this->_customer;
}
That means that in one of the cases singleton is already implemented/called and in other one - not as the property is already set.
The correct way to work with quote/customer/cart in order to get always the correct data is always to use the singleton pattern.
So using this:
$customer = Mage::getSingleton('customer/session')->getCustomer();
always guarantee that you get the correct customer in that session. And as may be you know singleton pattern is based on registry pattern in app/Mage.php:
public static function getSingleton($modelClass='', array $arguments=array())
{
$registryKey = '_singleton/'.$modelClass;
if (!self::registry($registryKey)) {
self::register($registryKey, self::getModel($modelClass, $arguments));
}
return self::registry($registryKey);
}
and looking at app/Mage.php:
public static function register($key, $value, $graceful = false)
{
if (isset(self::$_registry[$key])) {
if ($graceful) {
return;
}
self::throwException('Mage registry key "'.$key.'" already exists');
}
self::$_registry[$key] = $value;
}
...
public static function registry($key)
{
if (isset(self::$_registry[$key])) {
return self::$_registry[$key];
}
return null;
}
you can see that Magento checks is it is already set. If so, Magento will either throw an Exception, which is the default behavior or return null.
Hope this will help you to understand the issue you face.

Answer 3

I have sorted this out. I have moved the code from footer.phtml to head.phtml and it's working fine now.Values are not changing anymore. If anyone know the logic behind please post and I will change my answer. So far this is working.