Get the answers to the common questions of our users.
Detailed description of each particularity of the Music Store.
Technical articles with many tips and tricks about the use of the plugin.
Contact Us if the answer is not in the rest of documentation sources.
Installation Instructions:
Alternative Installation Method:
For selling tangible products, like CDs, DVDs, etc. are required some additional modules: the module to calculate the shipping cost, a tracking system, a stocks management system, etc. In the Music Store, none of these modules are included (for now), because are not needed for selling digital files, these are the reason why is recommended to use the music store only for selling digital files.
Insert in a page or post's content the store's shortcode: [music_store]. The plugin includes an icon over the contents editor.
The [music_store] shortcode accepts multiple attributes to configure the pages appearance and filtering or sorting the products. Click HERE for additional details.
To display a specific product in a page or post, insert the shortcode: [music_store_product id="10"], where the "id" attribute represents the product's id (The products' ids are displayed as the first column in the songs or collection lists)
Click HERE for checking the complete list of attributes supported by the [music_store_product] shortcode.
To display a products list, insert the shortcode: [music_store_product_list]
For checking the complete list of attributes supported by the [music_store_product_list], click HERE.
The plugin includes icons over the contents editor for inserting both shortcodes.
To display a product or list of products in all pages of website, insert the corresponding widget in the website's sidebar. More information about the widgets in the documentation page.
There are two ways to insert the shopping cart icon in all pages of website:
Tip: To prevent the shopping cart be displayed by duplicated in the pages of the store and products, go to the store's settings, and tick the option: "Hide the shopping cart icon from the store and products pages?"
Yes, that's possible. The artists, genres and albums are taxonomies associated to the songs, and for searching by the songs' taxonomies, go to the store's settings, and tick the checkbox: "Allow searching by taxonomies", and that's all.
The Music Store allows only one audio file per song. If you want selling different versions of a same song, for example: full song, ring tone, etc. each of them with their own price, should be grouped in collections.
First, creates all songs by separated, with its corresponding audio files, and prices.
Second, for each title, creates a collection, and selects all related songs, created in the first point, and assigns a price to the collection.
Third, uses the attribute: load="collections", in the store's shortcode.
Fourth, and finally, the "filtering by type" won't be needed in the store's page, go to the store's settings and untick the option "Allow to filter by type"
The limit in the files sizes to be upload to the server is not imposed by the plugin. The Music Store delegates the upload process to the Media Library of WordPress. The limits are imposed by directives in the PHP.ini file, directly by your hosting provider.
If you need additional information about the PHP directives involved in this process, visit the following link:
The files for demo can be generated dynamically by the plugin (in the pro version of the plugin), to prevent the access for free to the original files.
It is possible to define the percentage of the audio file to be used on demos, from the settings page of the store. The plugin will create a copy of the audio file, a truncated version of the original file, to use as demo.
To protect the resources of web server, the music store does not generates the audio files for demo every time a song is played, the music store uses the files created previously, stored in the "ms-temp" directory. So, after modify the percentage of audio file for demo, you should delete the files located into the "/wp-content/plugins/music-store/ms-temp" directory.
Note: If you are using the Pro version of the plugin, greater than or equal to 5.0.2, it is not required delete the files in the "ms-temp" directory, the files are deleted dynamically by the plugin, when the percentage of the audio file for demo is modified.
The current version of plugin integrates the store with PayPal only. However, if your project requires a different payment gateway, check the list of add-ons (in progress), or request a custom coding service clicking HERE
The restriction is imposed by PayPal. Please, check that your PayPal account allow to charge directly from the credit cards of customers.
This option is related directly with the PayPal settings, and not with the Music Store.
Please, follows the instructions below:
Note: The description applies for the new interface of PayPal.
From the homepage of your PayPal account, press the "Seller preferences" option. In the seller's profile there is an option titled "Website preferences", with the text "Bring customers back to my website after they pay with PayPal.", please, press the "change" link associated with this option, and set the auto return to "ON". PayPal requires you enter the URL to the return page, use in this case the URL to your website's homepage, because the Music Store sends the correct URL in the sale process.
PayPal notifies the payments to the website asynchronously, so can occur that the user returns to the download page, before the payment notification, so, the sale has not been registered yet. In this case the download page displays a timer, and checks again the validity of purchase.
If an user has paid for a product but has not received the download link
Possible causes are:
* The Instant Payment Notification (IPN) is not enabled in your PayPal account, in whose case the website won't notified about the payments. Please, visit the following link: How to enable the IPN?. PayPal needs the URL to the IPN Script in your website, however, you simply should enter the URL to the home page, because the store will send the correct URL to the IPN Script.
* The status of the payment is different to "Completed". If the payment status is different to "Completed" the Music Store won't generate the download link, or send the notification emails, to protect the sellers against frauds. PayPal will contact to the store even if the payment is "Pending" or has "Failed".
But if the IPN is enabled, how can be detected the cause of issue?
In this case you should check the IPN history (CLICK HERE) for checking all variables that your PayPal account has sent to your website, and pays special attention to the "payment_status" variable (CLICK HERE)
The IPN is enabled, and the status of the payment in the PayPal account is "Completed", the purchase has been registered in the sales reports of the Music Store (the menu option in your WordPress: "Music Store/Sales Report") but the buyer has not received the notification email. What is the cause?
* Enter an email address belonging to your website's domain through the attribute: "Notification "from" email" in the store's settings ( accessible from the menu option: "Music Store/Store Settings"). The email services (like AOL, YAHOO, MSN, etc.) check the email addresses in the "Sender" header of the emails, and if they do not belong to the websites that send the emails, can be classified as spam or even worst, as "Phishing" emails.
* The email address in the "From" attribute belongs to the store's domain, but the buyer is not receiving the notification email. In this case you should ask the hosting provider the accesses to the SMTP server (all hosting providers include one), and install any of the plugin for SMTP connection distributed for free through the WordPress directory.
The buyer has received the notification email with the download link, but cannot download the audio files.
* If was ticked the checkbox: "Pack all purchased audio files as a single ZIP file" in the store's settings, be sure the amount of memory assigned to the PHP Script in your web server is sufficient to generate the zipped file at runtime, including all audio files purchased. Unfortunately PHP generates the zip files in memory.
* The Music Store prevents the direct access to the audio files for security reasons. From the download page, the Music Store checks the number of downloads, the buyer email, or the expiration time for the download link, so, the plugin works as proxy between the browser, and the audio file, so, the PHP Script should have assigned sufficient memory to load the audio file. Pay attention, the amount of memory assigned to the PHP Script in the web server can be bigger than the file's size, however, you should to consider that all the concurrent accesses to your website are sharing the same PHP memory, and if two buyers are downloading a same file at the same time, the PHP Script in the server should to load in memory the file twice.
The IPN is enabled, and the status of the payment in the PayPal account is "Completed", the purchase has been registered in the sales reports of the Music Store (the menu option in your WordPress: "Music Store/Sales Report") but the buyer has not received the notification email. What is the cause?
* Enter an email address belonging to your website's domain through the attribute: "Notification "from" email" in the store's settings ( accessible from the menu option: "Music Store/Store Settings"). The email services (like AOL, YAHOO, MSN, etc.) check the email addresses in the "Sender" header of the emails, and if they do not belong to the websites that send the emails, can be classified as spam or even worst, as "Phishing" emails.
* The email address in the "From" attribute belongs to the store's domain, but the buyer is not receiving the notification email. In this case you should ask the hosting provider the accesses to the SMTP server (all hosting providers include one), and install any of the plugin for SMTP connection distributed for free through the WordPress directory.
Please, visit the following link to the PayPal documentation:
In this case you only should go to the sales reports of the store, through the menu option: "Music Store/Sales Report", and select the time interval where the purchase was made. In the product list will be displayed all sales on the interval selected. Finally, you should press the "Reset Time and Downloads" button corresponding to the customer's purchase.
Now, your user can download the product by a new time interval.
The security in the access to songs files is determined in different ways.
It is possible to define a time period, in days, where a download link is considered valid. If a user tries to download a purchased product, the Music Store checks the date of purchasing.
It is possible to limit the number of downloads by download link.
The Music Store may be configured to request the email address used in the purchasing to check the validity of download link.
The music store creates the download files in the "ms-downloads" directory. Be sure the "ms-downloads" has assigned permissions for writing.
Check the URL to the audio files for selling associated to the products, they must be accessible.
If it is enabled the option to generate a zipped file with all purchased audio files, be sure the amount of memory assigned to the PHP Script in the web server is sufficient to generate the zipped file.
Go to the settings page of the store, and enter the number of allowed downloads in the attribute: "Number of downloads allowed by purchase"
If a song is distributed for free, the music store redirects to the user directly to the audio file, and the browser will play the audio file, or download it, depending of headers sent by the server, and if the audio file is supported by the browser or not. Sometimes the browser plays the audio file, instead of download it.
If you want forcing the file download, you should modify the headers sent by the server. To force it, creates a .htaccess file, in the "/wp-content/uploads" directory, with the following content:
<FilesMatch "\.(?i:mp3|ogv|oga|ogg|wav)$> AddType application/octet-stream mp3 ogv oga ogg wav Header set Content-Disposition attachment </FilesMatch>
The Music Store uploads the audio files to the subdirectories of the "/wp-content/uploads" directory. To protect the audio files in the "uploads" directory, should be uploaded a .htaccess file to the "/wp-content/uploads" directory, whose content would be:
<FilesMatch "\.(mp3|wav|oga|ogg)$"> Deny from All </FilesMatch>
For selling collections only, and not individual songs, you only should untick the checkbox: "Sell as a single", from each song.
If you want selling only collections, the "filtering by type" option won't be needed in the store's page. To hide this filtering option, go to the store's settings, and untick the checkbox: "Allow to filter by type"
From the "Music Store pro" v5.0.16 it is possible to define exclusive prices. The songs that are purchased in exclusive, are removed from the store's page, and are moved in the administration section to a new list of products, the list of products that were sold in exclusive.
Tip: If was defined a discount for a song, it is not applied to the exclusive sales.
Yes, it is possible. Go to the store's settings, and tick the checkbox: "Pay what you want", in whose case the prices of products are hidden in the public webpage, and in their places are displayed input boxes to let buyers pay the amount they consider adequate. If the "Pay what you want" option is enabled then the exclusive prices are not taken into account. The amounts entered by the buyers are compared with the base price of the products and if the values are under the base prices then the Music Store displays the text entered in the "price under minimum" message.
The plugin allows you to insert the {download-links-here} text in the content of the download page where you prefer to display the download links to the purchased products.
The store includes some predefined layouts (like: Default, Professional, and Dark), selectable from the store's settings, to modify the appearance of the store's pages and products, for light or dark themes. To change only the music player's skin there are options too in the store's settgins.
However for more drastics changes, the Music Store includes a set of template files to use with collections and songs. To edit a specific template, go to the "ms-templates" directory located at "wp-content/plugins/music-store/ms-templates". This directory contains the list of files described below:
To modify only the colors, fonts, or sizes, would be sufficient edit the CSS rules in the file: "/wp-content/plugins/music-store/ms-styles/ms-public.css"
The download links are added at the end of content of the download page at runtime when it is visited by the buyer with the correct parameters. This page, can be edited like any other page in WordPress. However, it is recommended to enter as the last information, a text indicating that the links below are the download links to the purchased files.
The tracks are associated to the collections through the "Songs of collections" list in the collections properties. Each time a song is selected, the plugin generates a button over the songs list. The order followed in the songs selection, would be the same order in the tracks list on the public webpage.
To hide the popularity from the store's page, follow the steps below:
To hide the icons, follow the steps below:
The counter includes some numbers styles, selectable through the shortcode. For example: [music_store_sales_counter min_length="3" style="alt_digits"]. Click here for additional details.
However, to use your own numbers design, create a new directory with the name of new style in "/wp-content/plugins/music-store/ms-core/images/counter", and upload to the new folder, an image in gif format, for each digit from 0 to 9.
The importing section allows to create multiple products at the same time. The better results are obtained with MP3 files where were defined the ID3 tags with the correct information songs data.
To proceed importing multiple songs, follow the steps below:
The importer will create a new product for each audio file, with the information included in the ID3 tags.
Go to the sales reports, and enter the customer's email in the input box named "buyer", select a time interval, and finally press the "Search" button.
If you are not sure about the customer email, you can use a partial email address ( is not necessary to know the exact email address). About the time interval, if you are not sure about the dates of purchase, select as the "From" attribute, a far enough date.
Please, be sure:
Please, verify that the theme used in your website, calls the function: wp_footer(); in the template file "footer.php" or the template file "index.php"
Be sure there is not an uncaught javascript error in your page, that stops the rest of the code on page.
If you decide to protect the audio files, the plugin creates new audio files for demo that are truncated versions of the original audio files. So, they are played partially to be protected against unauthorized users and softwares.
In protected mode the music store creates new versions of the audio files in the "ms-temp" directory. Please, be sure the "ms-temp" directory has permissions for writing, and the URL of the original file is accessible.
From the store's settings: tick the PayPal checkbox, and enter the seller's email. Enter a price for the products. In any other case, the plugin assume you want distribute the product(s) for free, and will include a download link
By default the Music Store generates the page called "Download Page", whose content is generated at runtime with the download links of purchased products, but sometimes, the websites' administrators delete these pages because they think that are not important. If it is the case, restore the download page from the trash list. If the trash list has been emtied, create a new page with the slug: ms-download-page
The Music Store creates the page called "Shopping Cart", whose content is generated at runtime, with the products to purchase. If this page has been deleted, restore it from the trash list. But if the trash list was emptied, create a new page with the slug: ms-shopping-cart
The zipped files are created in memory, so, the amount of memory assigned to the PHP script in your web server should be sufficient to create the zipped file with all purchased audio files.
